05/27/2026
Amazon just retired the Rufus name.
In its place: Alexa for Shopping, a quieter announcement than it deserves, because the implications run much deeper than a rebrand.
On the newest episode of Human in the Loop, Alasdair and Cameron unpack what's actually happening:
→ Rufus reportedly drove 300M+ transactions in 2025. Amazon isn't killing it — it's absorbing it into the marquee brand.
→ The real fight isn't Alexa vs. Rufus. It's Alexa vs. ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini for the next generation of agentic commerce.
→ Alexa for Shopping is a convenience play. ChatGPT and Claude are becoming the trusted advisor play. Those are very different jobs.
→ And the elephant in the room: if shoppers start asking an LLM before they open Amazon, what happens to a $50B+ ad business built on keyword search?
🎧 New episode out now on Spotify & YouTube.
YouTube: https://hubs.ly/Q04hw5nW0
Spotify: https://hubs.ly/Q04hw1-M0