If you've ever found yourself going down the rabbit hole when shopping for food online trying to find products that match your dietary needs, some relief might be on the way. Instacart has just unveiled a suite of AI-powered features designed to make grocery shopping more personalized and nutrition-friendly.
The centerpiece of Instacart's update is Smart Shop, an AI system that learns your preferences over time. Rather than just remembering what you've bought before, Smart Shop analyzes your shopping patterns to understand your dietary preferences. If you consistently buy low-carb products, for example, the system will begin prioritizing similar items in your digital shopping aisles.
Smart Shop doesn't just look at your food macros, it distinguishes between intentional preferences and coincidental purchases. Buying almond flour might signal a low-carb preference, while chicken breast, though naturally low in carbs, doesn't necessarily indicate the same intent. Instacart claims the system can tell the difference and adjust accordingly.
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Beyond automated learning, you have the option to manually select from 14 dietary preferences including gluten-free, high-protein, low-sodium, and vegan options. You can also indicate if you're shopping for children or pets to further customize your experience.
To complement these Smart Shop preferences, Instacart is rolling out new food labels, called Health Tags. Instead of relying on manual entry for these tags, the company has used AI to analyze over 1.3 billion data points across food and beverage products, creating easy-to-spot tags for approximately half a million items.
The collection includes 30 different tags that cover everything from gluten-free and high-fiber to "no artificial colors" and "minimally processed." The idea is that you can quickly filter for products that meet your specific health requirements without reading dozens of nutrition labels.
Rounding out the update is Inspiration Pages – curated sections within the app that offer expert nutrition advice and shoppable recipes. The first page was created in collaboration with the American Diabetes Association, offering guidance for people with diabetes, prediabetes, or obesity.
While the idea of expert dietary guidance is sound, I think these pages would benefit from culinary expertise as well. Having recognized chefs collaborate with health organizations would likely make the recipes much more appealing to me. After all, healthy eating should still be delicious.
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It's worth noting that Instacart is just rolling out these new features, so you may not see them for your grocery store yet. During my testing, none of the places where I usually shop support the new features, but I was able to experience some of the new features when browsing a Fresh Market about 45 minutes from my home.
While AI personalization can be helpful, it does raise questions about whether we might end up in "food bubbles" where we're only exposed to certain types of products and brands. Sometimes discovering new ingredients or food categories happens through serendipity (Irvins Chili Crisp Salmon Skin at Costco!), and too much personalization might limit those discoveries.
[Image credit: Suzanne Kantra/Techlicious]
