Inside the investigation into the online marketplace that could be driving up your grocery bill

In this podcast episode, hosts Tanya Christian and Brian Vines look at a surprising reason your grocery bills may be going up. A recent CR investigation — put together with two other non-profits, Groundwork Collaborative and More Perfect Union — found that Instacart is conducting artificial intelligence-enabled price experiments on its customers. These "algorithmic pricing" experiments involve giving different prices to different customers for the same goods at the same store at the same time. Sometimes the prices differ by as much as 23% per item.

The co-hosts are joined by CR Investigative reporter Derek Kravitz, who explains what Instacart is up to, and why consumer advocates say the company seems to be creeping closer and closer to an even more problematic practice known as "surveillance pricing."

The conversation goes beyond Instacart, exploring how technology is transforming the supermarket landscape for all consumers, from loyalty programs that use demographic data to parcel out deals, to the potential of electronic shelf labels changing prices in real time. We also discuss the current lack of federal regulation of AI-enabled pricing and gives tips on how to navigate the new, algorithm-enabled grocery store.

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