Instacart adds ChatGPT meal-planning search tool

Instacart invites shoppers to ask questions about what to eat and how to make it, tackling the age-old “What's for dinner?” question with a new artificial intelligence-powered search option that incorporates OpenAI’s ChatGPT language-understanding capabilities.

The goal is to save shoppers time, inspire their routine and help them make food-related decisions by offering personalized recommendations throughout the shopping experience, according to a news release.

The San Francisco-based grocery technology company is leveraging ChatGPT with its own AI models and catalog data of more than a billion shoppable items across more than 80,000 retail partner locations.

By May 31, Ask Instacart started its rollout for Instacart customers, and it will scale up to all U.S. customers during the next few weeks, the company said.

Related: Instacart’s new tools to help independent grocers, along with big retailers

Ask Instacart is a reimagined — yet still familiar — search experience directly embedded in the search bar in the Instacart app, providing customers with product recommendations that are intuitively organized, as well as additional useful information about food preparation, product attributes, dietary considerations and more. The newly enhanced search experience also incorporates personalized question prompts into the search bar that anticipate customer preferences, reminding them of their needs based on their shopping history and encouraging them to discover new products.

“A simple question like ‘What's for dinner?’ is among the most complex for families everywhere to answer,” Instacart Chief Architect JJ Zhuang said in the release. “From decisions about budget and dietary specifications to cooking skills, personal preferences and so much more, Ask Instacart can help customers answer all of their food questions and deliver the ingredients for the perfect meal in as fast as an hour.”

For example, questions could range from “What's the best lettuce for tacos?” or “What should I make for a Memorial Day BBQ?”

With Ask Instacart, customers will be able to:

• Better understand what ingredients or dishes pair well with others, like, “What kind of side dishes should I serve with lamb chops?”
• Discover alternative ingredients that can be swapped for one another, like, “What fish is similar to salmon?”
• Get more information on cooking techniques, like, “What are good sauces for grilling chicken?”
• Generate lists of ingredients if they have a meal in mind, like, “What can I use in a stir fry?”
• Learn more about item attributes so they can get personalized dietary inspiration, like, “What are dairy-free snacks for kids?”
• Discover broader, context-specific inspiration for more open-ended queries, like, “What are the best vegetables to roast?”

Branded sponsored product campaigns, more AI initiatives

Also, Ask Instacart will help match consumer needs — through the questions asked — with brand partners’ sponsored product campaigns.

The Ask Instacart launch comes as part of a growing suite of new AI-native initiatives from Instacart rolling out through the next year and beyond.

In March, the company debuted an Instacart plugin for ChatGPT, which lets ChatGPT users express their food needs in natural language, matching it with Instacart's ability to make those needs instantly shoppable with ingredients delivered to their door in as fast as an hour. Since that launch, the Instacart plugin has been made available to all ChatGPT Plus subscribers. Instacart plans to launch more plugins with Microsoft Bing and Google Bard in the coming months.

Related: Instacart and Foodcellar Market in NY introduce Scan & Pay checkout

As generative AI technology is still in its early stages, Ask Instacart is a highly specialized model designed to only respond to relevant food-related questions. Instacart is committed to incorporating AI features into products in a responsible manner, according to the release.

The company partners with more than 1,200 national, regional and local retail banners to facilitate online shopping, delivery and pickup services from more than 80,000 stores across North America on the Instacart Marketplace.

The Instacart Platform offers retailers technology products and services for e-commerce, such as fulfilling orders, digitizing brick-and-mortar stores, providing advertising services and gleaning insights.

With Instacart Health, the company provides tools to increase nutrition security, make healthy choices easier for consumers and expand the role that food can play in improving health outcomes.