Amazon’s Rufus AI Boosts Black Friday Sales — New Data Shows Big Jump in Engagement & Conversions
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Amazon’s in-app AI helper, Rufus, appears to be
playing a growing role in how shoppers browse and buy on the platform. Fresh
data from the Black Friday shopping wave shows a strong rise in sessions where
users interacted with the AI assistant — and more importantly, a noticeable
lift in conversion rates. The trend suggests that shoppers are becoming
increasingly comfortable letting AI guide their buying decisions, especially
during high-traffic sales events. This shift comes as several major tech
companies — including Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, and Perplexity — recently
rolled out their own AI-powered shopping tools.
Rufus Shows Strong Engagement During Black Friday Rush
Ian Simpson, Senior Vice President of Innovation and
Strategy at Sensor Tower, shared new insights on LinkedIn revealing that Rufus
usage surged meaningfully during Black Friday in the US. Based on their
findings:
- Shopping
sessions on the Amazon app with Rufus active jumped 86% compared to
a normal day two weeks prior.
- In
contrast, non-Rufus sessions only grew by 16% in the same window.
Although Rufus is still not used by the majority of Amazon
shoppers, the spike highlights a clear behavioural shift: customers are
beginning to rely on AI to simplify product discovery, comparisons, and
recommendations.
Rufus Usage Climbs Above Prime Day Levels
Sensor Tower’s data further shows that Rufus was used in
38% of total Amazon sessions during Black Friday — slightly higher than the
34% usage recorded during Prime Day. That means more than one-third of
shoppers opted to interact with Amazon’s AI tool during the biggest sale event
of the year.
AI Sessions More Likely to End in Purchases
One of the most significant takeaways is conversion. The
data indicates that sessions using Rufus were 75% more likely to end in a
purchase than sessions without the AI assistant.
This suggests Rufus may be helping users refine searches, identify relevant
items faster, and make more confident purchasing decisions — rather than simply
serving as a novelty browsing feature.
AI Traffic Surges Across the E-Commerce Industry
Amazon isn’t the only platform seeing AI-driven momentum.
Separate analytics from Adobe reveal a massive 770% year-on-year increase in
AI-generated traffic to online shopping sites between November 1 and
November 30.
Breakdown of AI-redirected traffic sources:
- 74.4%
from desktop
- 25.6%
from mobile and tablets
This reinforces the idea that AI-assisted online shopping is
becoming a mainstream behaviour across platforms.
Experts Call for Balanced Expectations
Despite the strong numbers, Simpson encourages a realistic
lens. He notes that many consumers may be using Rufus as a more advanced
search tool rather than a full-fledged AI shopping agent. Higher
conversions, therefore, could be tied to improved discovery results rather than
a dramatic shift in buying patterns.
Even so, the data makes one thing clear: AI-powered shopping
support is gaining traction — and users are increasingly willing to use it when
making purchase decisions.
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#AmazonAI #TechNews #AIAssistant #DigitalShopping #SensorTower #TechMintora
