The FTC is reportedly investigating Instacart over its AI pricing tool

Toronto, Canada- November 14, 2020: Instacart company closeup sign is seen in Toronto, Canada. Instacart is an American company that operates a grocery delivery and pick-up service. (JHVEPhoto via Getty Images)

The Federal Trade Commission has sent Instacart a civil investigative demand, seeking information about its AI-powered pricing tool, according to Reuters. This comes after a recently published pricing experiment study showed that the online grocery delivery app gave different users different prices for the same items from the same store location at the exact same time. Some of the testers saw prices up to 23 percent higher than what the other testers saw, though the average difference for the same list of items was around 7 percent. Those ...