Can you trust you're getting the same grocery prices as someone else?

Instacart recently faced scrutiny following research from groups like the Groundwork Collaborative, led by Lindsay Owens, which revealed that grocery stores were using AI-driven "price testing" to charge different customers varying amounts for identical items. An experiment involving 400 shoppers found that 75% of items were priced inconsistently, with some customers paying up to 23% more for the same products from the same physical store. While economist Brian Albrecht argues that such price fluctuations are a standard market mechanism similar to coupons or senior discounts, critics view it as a deceptive shift toward personalized, "person-level" pricing that mirrors digital haggling. Although Instacart has since terminated this specific price testing practice and denies plans for individual-based targeting, the controversy highlights a growing trend of algorithmic pricing in the retail sector that challenges traditional expectations of price transparency and fairness for American households.