Amazon named its new chatbot Rufus after a Welsh corgi that a couple often took to the office

• Amazon launched a new AI-powered shopping assistant called Rufus on Thursday.
• The chatbot is named after a Welsh corgi owned by two of the company's earliest employees.
• Rufus was Amazon's "shortest volunteer worker" and "launched" some of the firm's first web pages.

Amazon has named its latest AI chatbot after a dog that belonged to two of the company's earliest workers.

The e-commerce giant launched a new AI-powered shopping assistant called Rufus on Thursday — and the chatbot shares a name with Amazon's first four-legged "employee."