Instacart scraps AI pricing tests that made some products more expensive

Instacart is ending its AI-powered pricing tests, which led some users to see higher prices on certain products than others. “Now, if two families are shopping for the same items, at the same time, from the same store location on Instacart, they see the same prices — period,” Instacart writes in a blog post on Monday.

The change comes just weeks after a study from Groundwork Collaborative, Consumer Reports, and More Perfect Union found that Instacart offered multiple price points for the same grocery items at the same store. The report drew attention from lawmakers, including Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who said in a letter to the Federal Trade Commission that “consumers deserve to know when they are being placed into pricing tests.” Reuters also reported that the FTC opened an investigation into Instacart’s AI pricing tests.

Instacart says it will no longer allow retailers to use the AI-powered Eversight technology it acquired in 2022 to run pricing tests, though retailers “may choose to vary the price of items on a store-by-store basis.” It adds that the pricing tests “were never based on supply or demand, personal data, demographics, or individual shopping behavior.”

“We’ve listened carefully to feedback from our customers. And we understand that the tests we ran with a small number of retail partners that resulted in different prices for the same item at the same store missed the mark for some customers,” Instacart says.