Dive Brief:
- Instacart on Tuesday unveiled Smart Shop, a new technology that uses generative artificial intelligence and advanced machine learning models to better understand customers’ dietary preferences and shopping habits.
- Instacart also announced it developed an AI-driven system to scan product data and extract key nutrition characteristics and debuted “Inspiration Pages,” which highlight products that match a customer’s health and dietary preferences.
- Instacart is enhancing its personalization tools as a way to help it stand out against rivals like DoorDash, Shipt and Uber Eats.
Dive Insight:
As shoppers grapple with the seemingly endless virtual aisles of grocery items, Instacart is looking to make online shopping faster and easier by offering a more curated experience.
For Smart Shop, Instacart said it is tapping into its catalog of 17 million items and proprietary dataset covering “millions” of grocery trips to better understand the nuances of customer behavior. After Smart Shop recognizes patterns in a customer’s preferences, it uses generative AI to serve up related products for that shopper. Based on Smart Shop preferences, Instacart will use AI-powered tagging and relevancy scoring to populate carousels with tailored products on a customer’s favorite retailer’s digital storefront.
Each time a customer shops, Smart Shop dynamically adjusts based on the consumer’s choices, according to Instacart.
The company said the current way customers shop for items that match dietary preferences is a “scavenger hunt” and noted that more than 70% of Instacart customers have at least one dietary preference.
Instacart users will also get prompts like “Show more low-carb options?” and their responses will help inform Smart Shop, according to Instacart.
Customers can manually set their Smart Shop preferences within the app’s settings and select from 14 dietary preferences, including gluten-free, high protein, low carb, organic, and preservative-free.
Meanwhile, under the newly created Health Tag system, Instacart said it has tagged over 1.3 billion data points across approximately 500,000 food and beverage products in its catalog and created 30 Health Tags, such as high protein, low carb and preservative-free. Customers can use these tags to filter for products.
Instacart developed its first Inspiration Page in partnership with the American Diabetes Association to provide expert nutrition advice, product recommendations and shoppable diabetic-friendly recipes to people living with prediabetes, diabetes and obesity.
Over the next few weeks, Instacart plans to expand its dedicated Inspiration Pages, including adding new shoppable experiences for Smart Shop preferences like high fiber and partnering with additional organizations to offer more guidance from experts.
The new tools are the latest technological efforts by Instacart to better identify and cater to consumers’ shopping habits and preferences. In the fall, Instacart announced new gamification and advertising capabilities for its smart carts.
