Instacart and Shipt both launched AI assistants on Sept. 9, giving shoppers a conversational shopping tool to help them build their grocery carts. Instacart also named the first grocers to go live on a white-label version retailers can brand as their own.
An independently operated subsidiary of Target Corp., Shipt offers same-day delivery from more than 100 retailers to 80 percent of the U.S. population. Instacart partners with more than 2,200 retail banners representing nearly 100,000 stores in North America.
The launches follow a summer of similar moves, including Kroger’s July rollout of an AI shopping assistant across all its banners and Schnucks’ personalized assistant with VitalityIP, making conversational cart-building one of the fastest-spreading fronts in grocery e-commerce.
Instacart’s Clementine and Cart Assistant
Instacart introduced Clementine, now available to most U.S. and Canadian customers on the Instacart Marketplace. The assistant turns a conversation, grocery list or recipe into a ready-to-buy cart, grounded in real-time inventory from the customer’s chosen store. Capabilities include personalized recipe generation, dietary preference filtering, deal surfacing, reordering “usuals” and converting a photo of a handwritten list into a cart.
The company cited a Harris Poll survey finding more than 80 percent of Americans say figuring out what to make for dinner causes them stress. Instacart said orders placed with Clementine include more items than its typical basket and exceed its $115 average basket size.
“We’ve spent nearly 15 years learning how families shop and eat, and Clementine puts that knowledge to work,” said Chris Rogers, CEO of Instacart, with U.S. headquarters in San Francisco.
“Grocery shopping is one of the most routine things people do, and also one of the most personal,” said John Adams, VP and head of product at Instacart. “What we built with Clementine is a system that understands both of those things, not just what you need, but how you eat, what you love, and what’s on the shelves at your store right now.”
Cart Assistant is the enterprise version powered by the same technology. The white-label assistant combines Instacart’s grocery intelligence with a retailer’s own catalog and customer data, letting grocers customize everything from the name and tone to loyalty integration and recipe content. Food Bazaar, Heritage Grocers Group and Woodman’s are now live, with Aldi U.S., Harmons, The Save Mart Companies, Stew Leonard’s and additional partners to follow.
Instacart also has partnered with Anthropic, OpenAI and Google, so grocery conversations that begin on Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or AI Mode in Google Search can be completed on Instacart.
Ask Shipt
Shipt launched Ask Shipt on its app and Shipt.com. Customers can describe what they’re looking for or upload a photo of a dish, and the assistant builds a customized cart in seconds from their chosen retailer. Prompts can span whole occasions (“create a cart for my Saturday tailgate for 25 people”) or budgets (“a weeknight meal for a family of five under $35”), and every recommendation can be reviewed, swapped or edited before checkout.
“Ask Shipt brings people-centric AI directly into the shopping journey, helping members move from inspiration to a personalized cart in moments,” said Katie Stratton, chief growth and strategy officer at Shipt, based in Birmingham, Alabama.
The launch joins other Shipt features including shopping through ChatGPT and Claude, curated Shipt Kits and the upcoming Shared Lists collaborative shopping tool.
“From AI-powered shopping experiences to new collaborative tools like Shared Lists, we’re building practical innovations that fit naturally into everyday life,” said Smrutha Ipparthi, chief technology and product officer at Shipt. “Ask Shipt is just one example of how we’re combining leading technology with the human understanding and connection that have always been at the heart of the Shipt experience.”
Related: Kroger Launches AI Shopping Assistant Across All Banners