FTC reportedly investigating Instacart (CART) over AI-driven pricing
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is reportedly investigating grocery delivery platform Instacart (CART) over its AI-driven pricing tool.
The probe comes after a study released earlier this month found that consumers using the app were being charged different prices for the same groceries.
The FTC sent Instacart a civil investigative demand seeking information about its AI pricing tool Eversight, according to Reuters. The tool allows retailers on Instacart to experiment with pricing using AI.
"The Federal Trade Commission has a longstanding policy of not commenting on any potential or ongoing investigations," the FTC said in a statement. "But, like so many Americans, we are disturbed by what we have read in the press about Instacart’s alleged pricing practices."
The study, called “Same Cart, Different Price: Instacart’s Price Experiments Cost Families at Checkout,” analyzed 437 shoppers across four different US cities and found that they "are unknowingly enrolled in AI-enabled experiments that can charge up to 23% more for the same item ordered from the same store at the same time."
On average, the study found a 7% difference between the total cost for the same grocery list at the same store.
The study was conducted by Groundwork Collaborative, Consumer Reports and More Perfect Union. It involved overseeing simultaneous online shopping sessions with hundreds of volunteers.
"Our investigation suggests that the scope of Instacart’s price experiments—which are taking place against the backdrop of the fastest increase in food prices since the late 1970s—is far broader and more costly to some consumers than has been publicly acknowledged," David Kravitz, an investigative reporter for Consumer Reports, wrote.
Instacart disputes study's findings
Affordability has become perhaps the biggest political issue in America at the moment, helping fuel Democrats to big election victories across multiple states in November.
President Trump addressed the nation on Wednesday night on the issue of affordability in an effort to try and regain his footing on the economic issues that are sending his approval ratings down.
In a blog post after the study was released, Instacart addressed the affordability issue and insisted that the company was "doubling down on affordability and convenience."
"This year, we’ve focused heavily on encouraging more retailers to move toward in-store and online price parity, working closely with partners to remove markups and align online prices with in-store," the company said, adding that "the work is paying off."
Instacart said that "retailers offering same-as-in-store pricing have grown more than 10 percentage points faster than those with markups, and they retain customers better on our platform."
In an emailed statement to Barron's, the company pushed back on the report's findings.
“Much of what’s been reported has mischaracterized how pricing works on Instacart,” a company spokesperson said. “First, our retail partners control their pricing strategies, and we work with them to align their online and in-store pricing wherever possible."
The spokesperson added that "prices on Instacart do not change in real time nor are they based on supply or demand, and we never use personal, demographic, or user-level behavioral data to set item prices.”
The study's authors note that they chose Instacart for their investigation because it is "by far the most dominant e-commerce grocery platform" in the US, with 250 million orders in the first three quarters of 2025.
Eversight allows retailers to experiment with algorithmic pricing in order to gauge how shoppers respond to prices as they go higher or lower. But these experiments might not be sitting well with US lawmakers.
"Consumers deserve to know when they are being placed into pricing tests,” Senator Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said in a letter to the FTC on Sunday. “The FTC should require a prominent on-screen label."
Shares of Instacart parent company Maplebear Inc. (CART) fell 10% in after hours trading on Wednesday and slid another 1.5% on Thursday.