On Wednesday (9), Instacart announced the launch of Clementine, an artificial intelligence assistant capable of turning conversations, recipes, and shopping lists into grocery carts ready for purchase. The tool is available to most of the platform's customers in the United States and Canada.
The consumer can ask for, for example, budget-friendly meals for a week, higher-protein options, or simply request their usual products. The system selects items considering the inventory of the chosen store, preferences provided by the user, and order history on Instacart.
Clementine can also identify promotions and cheaper alternatives, suggest recipes, and apply preferences such as vegetarian, gluten-free, or nut-free diets. Photos of handwritten lists and screenshots of digital lists can also be converted into items for the cart.
AI combines inventory, history, and prices to assemble orders
To support the recommendations, Instacart says it uses accumulated data from more than 1.6 billion orders, a catalog with more than 2 billion items and more than 10 million daily inventory signals from nearly 100,000 stores in North America. Product availability is updated according to the conditions of the selected store.
The company reported that the first tests also indicated an impact on purchase size. Orders placed with Clementine's assistance had, on average, more items and exceeded the average order value of US$ 115 recorded by Instacart as of June 30, 2026.
The launch expands the company's strategy to bring AI agents directly into the shopping journey. The same technology is used in the Cart Assistant, a version intended for supermarkets' own platforms. Food Bazaar, Heritage Grocers Group, and Woodman’s already use the system, while ALDI U.S., Harmon’s, Save Mart, and Stew Leonard’s are among the chains expected to adopt it.
Instacart has also been connecting its commerce infrastructure to external artificial intelligence services. The company maintains integrations or partnerships with ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Google's AI Mode, allowing journeys started in these assistants to be directed to purchases and orders through the platform.
