Instacart says AI-built carts beat its $115 average basket. Shipt shipped the same feature and called it relief from mental load.

Instacart’s “Clementine” AI assistant, launched on 9 September, generates carts that contain more items and exceed the company’s $115 average basket size, while Shipt’s “Ask Shipt” assistant builds carts from prompts or photos but provides no comparable metric. Both firms omitted whether paid placements can appear in AI-generated carts or how shoppers would be notified, raising unanswered questions about retail-media transparency.