Instacart expands ad offerings with video and AI assistant integration

Instacart, the dominant US grocery delivery platform, is significantly expanding its advertising capabilities by introducing a short-form vertical video feed and integrating ad placements directly into its nascent AI assistant. Ali Miller, Instacart's general manager of advertising, outlined this strategic pivot, signaling the company's ambition to capture a larger share of brand marketing budgets beyond traditional retail media. This move positions Instacart to compete directly with social media platforms for upper-funnel brand awareness and consideration spend.

Historically, retail media networks (RMNs) like Instacart have focused on lower-funnel performance advertising, leveraging first-party purchase data to drive immediate sales conversions. The introduction of a TikTok-like vertical video feed within the Instacart app allows brands to showcase products and engage consumers earlier in their shopping journey, before a specific purchase intent is established. This enables richer brand storytelling and product discovery, moving beyond static banner ads or sponsored product listings.

What actually shipped

The new vertical video feed allows brands to run short, engaging video ads that appear natively within the Instacart app experience. Concurrently, Instacart is developing an AI assistant designed to help users with meal planning, recipe discovery, and shopping list creation. Advertisements will be contextually integrated into these AI-powered conversations, offering relevant product suggestions directly within the user's planning flow. This dual approach aims to provide both broad reach and highly personalized, intent-driven ad exposure.

This expansion reflects a broader trend among major e-commerce and delivery platforms to evolve into comprehensive media owners. Companies like Amazon and Walmart have similarly invested in video advertising and advanced data-driven targeting to offer full-funnel solutions. Instacart's strength lies in its direct access to granular grocery purchase data, which provides a unique advantage for targeting and measuring the real-world impact of brand campaigns.

The ultimate goal for Instacart is to demonstrate the incrementality of these new ad units across the entire marketing funnel. Brands are increasingly demanding proof that their advertising spend generates additional sales, not just attributes existing demand. Integrating these new formats allows Instacart to present a more compelling case for brand investment, showing how video views and AI assistant engagements translate into actual basket additions.

"It's not just about, 'I'm going to shop for Tide, and I'm going to see Tide in search.' It's also, 'I'm going to see a Tide ad when I'm browsing for something else, or when I'm looking for a specific solution, or when I'm engaging with our AI assistant for meal planning."

What comes next

The success of Instacart's full-funnel play will depend on user adoption of the new video feed and the AI assistant, as well as the platform's ability to provide transparent, robust measurement frameworks. Brands will need clear metrics that connect upper-funnel video engagement to downstream purchase behavior. For marketers, this represents another channel to consider for brand-building, but one that requires careful evaluation of its unique audience and purchase intent signals compared to established social or CTV platforms.