Instacart launches AI grocery shopping assistant Clementine

Instacart announced on Wednesday the launch of Clementine, a new AI-powered grocery shopping assistant that can convert a conversation, a grocery list, or a recipe into a cart ready for checkout.

According to the company, Clementine is designed to help users decide what to cook, simplify the shopping process, and stick to a budget. Shoppers can make requests such as asking for a week of budget-friendly kids' lunches, quick high-protein dinners for two, or simply reordering their usual items.

Instacart is not alone in this push. Rival delivery services Uber Eats and DoorDash have both rolled out comparable AI tools that turn natural-language requests and shopping lists into personalized carts.

Becoming the planning tool, not just the store

The rise of these assistants shows that delivery platforms increasingly want to be involved in decisions made before a purchase, not just the transaction itself. Companies are now competing not only on delivery speed and product variety but on becoming the go-to planning tool households rely on for grocery shopping. They are also trying to keep users within their own apps rather than losing them to general-purpose AI chatbots like ChatGPT.

Clementine can generate personalized recipes or pull ones from trusted publishers, and it tailors suggestions to a household's dietary needs, including gluten-free, vegetarian, nut-free, or organic preferences. The assistant also highlights relevant deals and promotions and suggests cheaper alternatives to items. Users can additionally upload a photo of a handwritten grocery list or a screenshot of a digital one, which Clementine will convert directly into a shopping cart.

Instacart CEO Chris Rogers said in a press release that the company has spent nearly 15 years learning how families shop and eat, and that Clementine puts that accumulated knowledge to work. The assistant is now available to users in the United States and Canada.