The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has begun an investigation into Instacart’s use of an AI-based pricing system, as reported by Reuters.
The regulator has issued the grocery delivery platform with a civil investigative demand seeking detailed information on its Eversight pricing software.
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Eversight enables retailers on Instacart’s marketplace to experiment with varying price points using AI-generated testing.
The move follows heightened scrutiny of Instacart’s pricing practices.
Research conducted by Groundwork Collaborative, Consumer Reports and More Perfect Union across 437 customers in four US cities has indicated that shoppers using the service were sometimes shown different prices for the same grocery items.
The study found notable discrepancies in the prices offered for identical products from the same retailers, and that the overall cost of the same basket of goods could vary by an average of 7%.
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By GlobalDataThe study read: “Some shoppers found grocery prices that were up to 23% higher than prices available to other shoppers for the exact same items, in the exact same store, at the exact same time.”
The FTC’s decision to open a probe does not, in itself, suggest that the agency has concluded that any laws were broken. Many such investigations do not culminate in enforcement measures.
In mid-December 2025, Instacart stated that pricing experiments carried out using Eversight are randomised and not based on individual user data or behaviour.
The company does not generally determine prices listed on its marketplace, except for Target orders, where it scrapes publicly available prices and adds a margin to cover its costs.
Target has stated that it is not affiliated with Instacart and does not control the prices Instacart sets.
In a statement to Reuters, the FTC said: “The Federal Trade Commission has a longstanding policy of not commenting on any potential or ongoing investigations. But, like so many Americans, we are disturbed by what we have read in the press about Instacart’s alleged pricing practices.”
