Reuters reported that the FTC's investigation is focused on Instacart's AI-driven pricing tool and whether it led shoppers to be charged different prices for identical goods.

The scrutiny comes as the Trump administration places renewed emphasis on lowering consumer prices after four years of failed Bidenomics.

The FTC has sent Instacart a civil investigative demand seeking information on the Eversight pricing tool. Instacart shares fell about 7% in premarket trading.

"The Federal Trade Commission has a longstanding policy of not commenting on any potential or ongoing investigations. But, like so many Americans, we are disturbed by what we have read in the press about Instacart's alleged pricing practices," the FTC told the outlet.

According to a study of 437 shoppers across four metro areas conducted by nonprofit groups Groundwork Collaborative, Consumer Reports, and More Perfect Union, shoppers paid different prices for the same supermarket items, with some paying more than 23% more than others.

"Some shoppers found grocery prices that were up to 23% higher than prices available to other shoppers for the exact same items, in the exact same store, at the exact same time," the study's authors wrote.

Instacart says Eversight enables retailers to run randomized price tests and argues the system is not based on shopper data or demand fluctuations. The company also says retailers, not Instacart, set prices, except at Target, where Instacart scrapes public prices and adds its own margin.

FTC emphasized that an investigation does not imply wrongdoing. The probe comes amid heightened political focus on affordability and AI-driven pricing practices.

Overnight, President Trump addressed the nation in a live-stream from the White House about the successes of his first year back in office. One of the topics he started with was affordability...  

As we've pointed out, Democrats know their constituents can't read charts and have launched multiple misinformation campaigns, attempting to pin the power price surge on Trump. However, much of the surge in power prices occurred during the nation-killing years of the Biden-Harris administration (see here).

Affordability seems likely to be a hot topic in the 2026 midterm election cycle.