Quick Take — Instacart (US e-commerce) democratises ‘consumer intelligence’ with an AI-powered portal

Customer intelligence, often referred to as customer intelligence CI, is the collection, analysis and use of data to understand your customers’ behaviour, preferences and needs.

The Instacart Consumer Insights Portal (CIP) is a software platform that gives brands direct access to purchasing behaviour across the Instacart marketplace. Based on daily activity from nearly 100,000 locations, CIP offers marketing, sales, revenue growth management and insights to self-service teams access to SKU-level performance, search behaviour, substitution patterns and promotion impact, all based on actual transactions, not modelled data or survey panels.

Instacart is a service that does ‘last mile’ e-commerce for many US retailers. Instacart works with more than 1,400 different brands (national, regional and local), covering more than 80,000 shops across North America. Walmart is among its partners:although the Bentonville, Arkansas-based giant has its own strong delivery infrastructure, it works with Instacart in selected markets to expand its coverage. Below: the Instacart service at Whole Foods in 2016.

The video of ‘The future they imagined, eCommerce food today’

Today, eCommerce food & grocery, although still representing a limited share of the overall turnover of food distribution, has in several cases reached economically sustainable models. This topic was discussed at the eCommerce Food Conference during a round table discussion between Giuseppe Caprotti and Mario Gasbarrino, two historical protagonists of Italian large-scale retail, moderated by Cristina Lazzati, director of Mark Up and Gdoweek

Quick Take — Usa / Uber lancia Cart Assistant: la spesa si fa con l’IA

…L’obiettivo, come riporta Food Dive, è semplificare la pianificazione degli acquisti, intercettando una tendenza in crescita: secondo il sondaggio CPG 2025 di PwC, il 40% dei consumatori prevede di utilizzare l’IA per confrontare i prodotti entro il 2030 e circa un terzo immagina decisioni d’acquisto completamente automatizzate.

Con Cart Assistant non è più necessario scorrere tra i vari prodotti e categorie: basta inserire il nome di un piatto, oppure caricare la foto di un elenco pasti scritto a mano o lo screenshot di una ricetta per ottenere automaticamente la lista degli ingredienti. Il sistema tiene conto anche di disponibilità, prezzi e promozioni del singolo punto vendita.

La funzione è pensata per evolversi nel tempo, imparando le abitudini degli utenti e suggerendo marchi preferiti e prodotti acquistati di frequente. All’interno dell’assistente è possibile modificare il carrello, sostituire articoli e rivedere l’ordine prima del checkout….

Alimentando

Uber Eats fa e-commerce da almeno 6 anni

Ecommerce food Conference 2026

Giuseppe Caprotti, author of the book Le Ossa dei Caprotti, is an expert in the distribution of food and non-food products. He contributed to the modernisation and strategic and organisational development of Esselunga. in large-scale distribution, introducing innovative management tools and food innovation. He is president of the Guido Venosta Foundation, which promotes scientific research, health protection, culture, solidarity and the environment

Quick Take — DoorDash – which owns Deliveroo – ended 2025 as the leading third-party marketplace by order volume in the US food and retail sector

DoorDash makes home deliveries but also does Quick Commerce . It works with large chains from McDonald’s to Walmart. It offers service to restaurants to build their online presence and handle direct orders. In 2025 it acquired Deliveroo.

...An integration with ChatGPT now allows users to go from browsing recipes in their AI-based conversations directly to the DoorDash shopping cart..

Marketplace gross order value reached $29.7 billion in the quarter (*), an increase of 39%. Net income attributable to ordinary shareholders was $213 million, up 51% year-on-year, and adjusted EBITDA grew 38% to $780 million..

The company ended 2025 with over 56 million monthly active users and over 35 million paying subscribers through its DashPass, Wolt and Deliveroo Plus subscription programmes… Progressive Grocer

(*) if you multiply by 4 it makes $118.8 billion

Compiled 25 February, updated 26 February 2026

Quick Take — Walgreens fires over 600 employees after takeover by private equity fund

. ..New York-based private equity firm Sycamore Partners completed its acquisition of the retail pharmacy company for $23.7 billion in August 2025. The deal came after a tumultuous few years for Walgreens, which saw the closure of more than 1,000 shops as the company struggled with slowing retail sales, growing online competition and challenges in other aspects of its business, including health services…

Progressive Grocer