According to a report from Reuters, Instacart is currently receiving what could be described as the regulatory equivalent of a cautious throat-clearing from the Federal Trade Commission. The agency has issued the grocery delivery giant a civil investigative demand—a formal request for information—concerning the company’s use of its artificial intelligence–driven pricing system known as Eversight. In essence, the FTC is seeking to understand the underlying rationale and methodology that determine why some customers find themselves paying noticeably higher prices for certain everyday products, such as organic granola, than other shoppers purchasing the exact same items.
This regulatory curiosity stems from a public study that brought a troubling pattern to light: consumers have been encountering dramatically inconsistent prices for identical groceries sold by the same retailers, with disparities reaching as high as twenty-three percent in certain instances. While Instacart maintains that these fluctuating prices resulted from randomized tests rather than from any algorithmic mechanism deliberately profiling individual users according to their browsing or purchasing behavior, many observers remain skeptical. After all, when budgets are already strained and customers are anxious about the rising cost of basic staples—from eggs to bread—such technical distinctions may appear largely academic, offering little comfort to household shoppers already feeling economic pressure.
The practice at the center of this debate—dynamic pricing, or the adjustment of product prices in real time based on data inputs—is hardly novel, nor is it inherently unethical. Academic institutions, such as Harvard Business School, often praise it as a key competitive strategy within the digital marketplace. In various industries, it serves as a mechanism to balance supply and demand efficiently while maximizing revenue generation. Airline carriers and hotel operators have employed dynamic pricing models for decades, adjusting fares and room rates according to fluctuating market conditions, while ride-hailing services like Uber remain famous (or infamous) for their use of surge pricing to manage driver availability and consumer demand. Proponents argue that such systems can, at least in theory, produce mutually beneficial outcomes—companies enhance profitability and resource allocation, while customers gain access to products and services that might otherwise be unavailable or overpriced under static pricing regimes.
Nevertheless, there exists a crucial moral and contextual boundary between paying an elevated fare for a late-night ride home and being asked to spend extra on groceries—items that are fundamental to daily life and cannot be regarded as optional conveniences. Food, unlike a ride across town, is a necessity, and the prospect of an algorithm determining variable prices for essential goods naturally triggers public unease. Therefore, even though the FTC’s inquiry does not constitute proof of misconduct or an accusation of illegality, it is unsurprising that the agency—already known for its examinations of data-centered pricing tactics in other tech-driven sectors—has decided to scrutinize Instacart’s approach. In an economy where consumers in nearly every income bracket are feeling the pinch of inflation and economic uncertainty, the revelation that artificial intelligence might be dynamically reshaping the cost of basic kitchen staples was almost guaranteed to attract regulatory attention and spark a broader ethical conversation about transparency, fairness, and the appropriate limits of AI in the marketplace.
Sourse: https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/17/instacarts-ai-driven-pricing-tool-attracted-attention-now-the-ftc-has-questions/
