OpenAI and Instacart are bringing grocery shopping to ChatGPT.
The two companies announced Monday that the Instacart app is being directly integrated into ChatGPT, meaning you can browse for groceries and check out, all within the popular chatbot.
The aim is that users can ask ChatGPT for meal ideas or help with a recipe, then boom: buy everything they need from Instacart.
“With the Instacart app directly in ChatGPT, users can go from meal planning to checkout in a single, seamless conversation,” said Nick Turley, head of ChatGPT, in a statement.
“It’s another step toward bringing our vision to life—where AI delivers helpful suggestions and connects directly to real-world services, saving people time and effort in their everyday lives.”
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Curious culinary customers should, however, keep in mind that AI tools do have a habit of being confidently wrong — meaning the recipes might not always be perfect.
Reviews of ChatGPT-generated recipes online, for instance, are a mixed bag — but mostly middling.
Also worth noting: the AI model can hallucinate when it comes to recipes, and we’re not just talking about the infamous “glue on pizza” bit made up by Google’s AI overviews in 2024.
As recently as August 2025, one person was hospitalized after reportedly following ChatGPT dietary advice that suggested replacing table salt with sodium bromide, which is toxic for human consumption.
So if any user wants to take advantage of recipe ingredients via the OpenAI-Instacart partnership this holiday season, they would be well-advised to make like Santa Claus — and check their list at least twice.
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.
