by Madyson Fitzgerald | Mar 27, 2026 | affordability, AI, AI surveillance, Algorithms, Food Prices, grocery costs, Instacart, News, Personal Data, Surveillance
One online grocery shopper got charged $3.99 for a box of Wheat Thins, while another — buying from the same store at the same time — got charged $4.89. A consumer watchdog detected this price discrepancy during an investigation last September in Seattle. The grocery app Instacart used an artificial intelligence-powered algorithm that charged customers differently for each item by as much as…
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by Sharon Zhang | Dec 10, 2025 | AI, Capitalism, Economy, grocery costs, Instacart, Kroger, News, price gouging
A new investigation has revealed that grocery delivery service Instacart is using a covert, AI-powered dynamic pricing scheme to charge customers different prices for the same items — potentially costing households over $1,000 more a year. Groundwork Collaborative, Consumer Reports, and More Perfect Union collaborated on an experiment with 437 shoppers across four U.S. locations…
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