A newly released study has brought to light that Instacart, a prominent fresh grocery delivery platform in the United States, employs AI - driven pricing mechanisms. This has led to a situation where consumers end up paying varying prices for identical products sourced from the same store. To conduct this study, researchers enlisted 437 shoppers. These shoppers were tasked with adding the exact same items to their virtual shopping carts on the Instacart App, all from the same retailer.

The findings were quite striking. Nearly 75% of the products that were put through the test showed different prices for different users. Moreover, when it came to the total cost of the same basket of goods from the same store, there was a variation of up to around 7%. To put this into perspective, if such price discrepancies were to continue over the course of a year, it could translate into an annual cost difference of approximately $1,200 for consumers.

In response to these findings, Instacart issued a statement. The company clarified that only a select few of its partner retailers are currently engaged in limited - scale online pricing tests. Furthermore, it emphasized that these tests do not make use of personal information, demographic details, or data related to individual user behavior. Additionally, Instacart stated that prices on its platform do not change based on the principles of supply and demand or real - time market factors.