Many U.S. shoppers who order grocery deliveries through Instacart are unknowingly part of widespread AI-enabled experiments that price identical products differently from one customer to the next—sometimes by as much as 23 percent. Instacart’s algorithmic pricing experiments were found to be occurring through the platform at several of the nation’s biggest grocery retailers, including Albertsons, Costco, Kroger, Safeway, Sprouts Farmers Market, and Target.
These are among the findings of a months-long investigation by Consumer Reports and Groundwork Collaborative, as part of a larger project with More Perfect Union, two nonprofit organizations with experience analyzing food prices. Via Consumer Reports:
Algorithmic pricing is usually invisible to consumers, who typically see only the prices and fees they’re offered. Researchers, meanwhile, are rarely granted access to the complex systems of algorithms, artificial intelligence, and data that parcel out individualized prices. CR’s investigation, which involved orchestrating simultaneous online shopping sessions with hundreds of volunteers, aimed to peek inside the black box.
Instacart has disclosed its pricing experiments in corporate marketing and investor materials, noting that “shoppers are not aware that they’re in an experiment.” But the company described the resulting price differences as small and “negligible.”
