Over the past several years, Amazon (AMZN) has brought us some pretty nifty products.
Thanks to Amazon Prime, free two-day shipping (and often faster than that) has become the norm for online shopping. As American consumers, if we place an order on Amazon—or any other large online retailer, for that matter—and it doesn't show up at our door 48 hours later, we're probably contacting customer service.
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But single-day shipping convenience is just the start. Amazon has developed an uncanny knack for delivering conveniences we didn't know we needed.
Between Alexa, Kindles, Fire TV, various smart tablets, and exclusive savings at Whole Foods- if you're a Prime member, chances are you've benefitted from more than a few Amazon innovations (or acquisitions).
But that doesn't mean every venture the retail giant touches has turned to gold.
More Retail:
- Ulta CEO sounds the alarm on a growing problem
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- Amazon launches genius new subscription product
Amazon has abandoned plenty of ill-fated products and purchases that customers have either responded poorly to or have simply failed to produce meaningful profit in a satisfactory amount of time.
Remember Quidsi? Or Amazon's Fire Phone? What about its massive healthcare undertaking, Haven? If not, you're probably not alone. They're all buried in Amazon's graveyard of defunct attempts to make our lives easier and its wallet thicker.
Amazon tries a lot of new things
But some failures haven't stopped Amazon from trying to make our lives as seamlessly integrated with as many of its products as possible.
Take, for example, its latest crack at artificial intelligence. Its latest product, Rufus, is now not-so-secretly offered at nearly every product page on Amazon's storefront, prompting customers to ask it questions.
For a countertop reverse osmosis system, for example, suggested questions include "What do customers say?" "Is the filter replacement difficult?" and "Can this be used with well water?"
Rufus, which is still in the beta stage, then returns with a near-instantaneous two-to three-sentence answer, along with some follow-up questions you might want to ask.
But not everyone is impressed.
"I can't express how much I hate Rufus," one Amazon user wrote on a recent Reddit thread discussing the new update.
"Just had to revert my Amazon app to the stock version to get rid of it. There's no other way. I'm flabbergasted they'd roll out something like this without giving people a simple option to disable it. I don't need a useless chatbot taking up screen real estate when I'm trying to shop. And it gives false information," another wrote.
It's been at one venture for a while
One of Amazon's less new but still fickle ventures has been grocery. While its 2017 acquisition of Whole Foods has proven successful, the retail giant has bigger ambitions. It has been working to build up other store concepts, like its Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go stores, in busy metropolitan areas.
Like Rufus, Amazon Fresh and Go stores have had mixed results.
Many of these stores utilize Amazon's Just Walk Out technology, which allows customers to enter, shop, and leave without going through a cumbersome checkout process.
Sounds easy, but on the backend, it's something of a logistical nightmare. This is perhaps why Amazon recently moved Just Walk Out from its retail operations division to its Amazon Web Services (AWS) division. It's more technical than just trusting customers with the honor system.
However, on Wednesday, Amazon said it was working to improve the Just Walk Out system using AI, which (in theory) should help to make the shopping process easier and faster.
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Amazon says it's using AI to analyze "data from cameras and sensors throughout the store simultaneously, instead of looking at which items shoppers pick up and put back in a linear sequence. For retailers, the new AI system makes Just Walk Out faster, easier to deploy, and more efficient. For shoppers, this means worry-free shopping at even more third-party checkout-free stores worldwide."
Amazon says this allows Just Walk Out to operate even during complicated shopping experiences, such as a crowded store that may obstruct certain camera angles.
The retailer also claims that its improvements have been made so covertly that most customers shouldn't even notice a difference in their shopping experience—just that it's an easier process from start to finish.
"For example, a shopper might pick up and put down multiple varieties of yogurt in different combinations, and as they are doing so, another customer might reach for the same item, or the freezer door could fog up, obscuring the cameras’ view," Amazon explained.
"In complex situations like these, the new model can quickly and accurately determine the actual items taken by each shopper."
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