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[ARTICLE · art-109251] src=consumerrights.wiki ↗ pub= topic=ai-ethics verified=true sentiment=↓ negative

Instacart

On December 9, 2025, Consumer Reports and Groundwork Collaborative released an investigation finding that Instacart customers ordering the same items from the same store location were offered different prices, with total order costs varying by as much as 8.4%, suspected to result from the Eversight AI pricing platform conducting price experiments. Instacart announced on December 22, 2025, that it no longer supports algorithmic pricing, according to the Associated Press.

read2 min views2 publishedAug 24, 2026

Incidents: Changed link to use Template:Main; clean-up; added excerpt. | ← Older revision | Revision as of 20:24, 24 August 2026 | ||

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==Incidents== | ==Incidents== | ||

This is a list of all consumer-protection incidents this company is involved in. Any incidents not mentioned here can be found in the [[:Category:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|{{PAGENAME}} category]]. | This is a list of all consumer-protection incidents this company is involved in. Any incidents not mentioned here can be found in the [[:Category:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|{{PAGENAME}} category]]. | || ===Algorithmic pricing (''2025'')=== | ===Algorithmic pricing (''2025'')=== | || {{Main|Instacart uses algorithmic pricing}}On December 9, 2025, Consumer Reports and Groundwork Collaborative released an investigative piece on the use of algorithmic pricing on Instacart's platform.<ref name=":02">{{Cite web |last=Kravitz |first=Derek |date=2025-12-09 |title=Instacart’s AI-Enabled Pricing Experiments May Be Inflating Your Grocery Bill, CR and Groundwork Collaborative Investigation Finds |url=https://www.consumerreports.org/money/questionable-business-practices/instacart-ai-pricing-experiment-inflating-grocery-bills-a1142182490 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20251216172641/https://www.consumerreports.org/money/questionable-business-practices/instacart-ai-pricing-experiment-inflating-grocery-bills-a1142182490/ |archive-date=2025-12-16 |access-date=2025-12-16 |website=Consumer Reports}}</ref> They discovered that customers ordering the same items from the same store location were being offered different prices, with the total order cost varying as much as 8.4%. It is suspected that these pricing disparities are a result of the Eversight AI pricing platform conducting price experiments on customers. | {{Main|Instacart uses algorithmic pricing}} | || On December 9, 2025, Consumer Reports and Groundwork Collaborative released an investigative piece on the use of [[Dynamic pricing|algorithmic pricing]] on Instacart's platform.<ref name=":02">{{Cite web |last=Kravitz |first=Derek |date=2025-12-09 |title=Instacart’s AI-Enabled Pricing Experiments May Be Inflating Your Grocery Bill, CR and Groundwork Collaborative Investigation Finds |url=https://www.consumerreports.org/money/questionable-business-practices/instacart-ai-pricing-experiment-inflating-grocery-bills-a1142182490 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20251216172641/https://www.consumerreports.org/money/questionable-business-practices/instacart-ai-pricing-experiment-inflating-grocery-bills-a1142182490/ |archive-date=2025-12-16 |access-date=2025-12-16 |website=Consumer Reports}}</ref> They discovered that customers ordering the same items from the same store location were being offered different prices, with the total order cost varying as much as 8.4%. It is suspected that these pricing disparities are a result of the Eversight AI pricing platform conducting price experiments on customers. | ||| As of December 22, 2025, Instacart has announced that their service no longer supports algorithmic pricing.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |date=2025-12-22 |title=Instacart ends a program where users could see different prices for the same item at the same store |url=https://apnews.com/article/instacart-pricing-customers-retailers-c9a0a52e959ce46d2152aa664308d228 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20260103232652/https://apnews.com/article/instacart-pricing-customers-retailers-c9a0a52e959ce46d2152aa664308d228 |archive-date=2026-01-03 |access-date=2025-12-23 |website=Associated Press News}}</ref> | As of December 22, 2025, Instacart has announced that their service no longer supports algorithmic pricing.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |date=2025-12-22 |title=Instacart ends a program where users could see different prices for the same item at the same store |url=https://apnews.com/article/instacart-pricing-customers-retailers-c9a0a52e959ce46d2152aa664308d228 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20260103232652/https://apnews.com/article/instacart-pricing-customers-retailers-c9a0a52e959ce46d2152aa664308d228 |archive-date=2026-01-03 |access-date=2025-12-23 |website=Associated Press News}}</ref> |

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LIVE [news/instacart] indexed:0 read:2min 2026-08-24 ·