Instacart launched Clementine, a conversational grocery shopping assistant. It is live for most US and Canadian customers on the app and website. Shoppers can ask for meal ideas, reorders or party lists and get a filled cart. It can also read a photo of a handwritten or on-screen shopping list. Suggestions draw on past orders, stated dietary preferences and real-time store stock. Instacart says Clementine orders contain more items than its typical basket. The company also named new grocers live with Cart Assistant, its white-label version for retailers' own sites. Food Bazaar, Heritage Grocers Group and Woodman's are live, with ALDI US and others to follow. Instacart separately links with Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini so shopping chats can finish as orders. Survey figures on dinner stress come from a Harris Poll commissioned by Instacart.
What changed
Instacart customers searched for items one at a time to build carts.
What it unlocks
Turning a typed request, photo of a handwritten list or recipe into a ready-to-buy grocery cart.
- $115 average basket size
- 1.6 billion lifetime orders
- 2 billion item catalogue
- 2,059 adults surveyed, ±2.7 points
What you need to act on it
- an Instacart account
- US or Canada
Sources