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 pr

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