Dive Brief:
- Amazon is investing in better customer experiences through AI and faster delivery, CEO Andy Jassy said on a Q4 2024 earnings call Thursday.
- The retailer redesigned its customer service chatbot using generative AI, which improved customer satisfaction scores with the chatbot by 5%, according to Jassy.
- Amazon is investing in sites, robotics and automation to continue accelerating its delivery speeds, according to Jassy. The company expanded its number of same-day delivery sites by more than 60% in 2024, and it plans to expand the number of rural delivery stations in the near future.
Dive Insight:
Amazon credited its successful quarter to a combination of convenience, selection and price and said its AI investments will continue to improve customer experience.
“We're pleased with the invention, customer experience improvements and results delivered in 2024 and have a lot more planned in 2025,” Jassy said during the call.
The online retailer’s net sales increased 10% year over year to $187.8 billion in the fourth quarter, according to a company earnings report. Product sales accounted for $82.2 billion of the total, while service sales accounted for $105.6 billion.
Rufus, Amazon’s AI-powered shopping assistant, is one of the investments driving the company’s push for greater convenience.
“If you're buying something and you're on a product detail page, our product detail pages provide so much information that sometimes it's hard if you're trying to find something quickly to scroll through and figure and find that little piece of information,” Jassy said. “And so we have so many customers now who use Rufus to help them find a quick fact about a product.”
Customers are using Rufus to summarize reviews as well, according to Jassy. Reviews are an important element of Amazon’s experience, and Rufus’ ability to summarize a large number of reviews helps customers get a better sense of what others think about a given product.
“We expect throughout 2025 that the number of occasions where you're not sure what you want to buy and you want help from Rufus are going to continue to increase and be more and more helpful to customers,” Jassy said.
AI helps Amazon personalize sizing for clothing and shoes as well, according to Jassy. The company knows which manufacturers tend to run big or small, so if a customer is looking for a pair of shoes, the algorithm can recommend the size that will offer the right fit from a specific brand.
