Instacart AI Assistant: Larger Orders, Personalized Shopping

Instacart is rolling out a new agentic AI assistant that builds personalized grocery carts. This assistant works from a conversation, selected prompts, or even an uploaded photo. What's interesting is that the company says this AI assistant produces orders that are generally larger than typical baskets. It uses live inventory data from nearly 100,000 stores across North America and learns your favorite brands from past orders, even finding sale items. Instacart tested this experience for months and is now deploying it to millions of U.S. customers. A full U.S. and Canada rollout is expected within months. As of Q1 2026, about 25% of U.S. customers had access to the Cart Assistant. The bottom line: This AI assistant could change how you shop for groceries, making it easier to build your cart and potentially increasing your order size.