---
id: "entity-instacart"
type: "entity"
entityType: "organization"
canonicalName: "Instacart"
aliases: ["Ask Instacart"]
source_timestamps: ["§ [ Stage 3 ] Make Other AI Agents Choose Your Brand"]
tags: ["grocery-delivery", "ecosystem-integration"]
related: ["framework-three-stages-agentic-adoption", "concept-full-ai-intermediation"]
sources: ["agentic"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-agentic"
originDay: 6
articleStem: "hbr-ext-18-preparing-brand-agentic-ai"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/03/preparing-your-brand-for-agentic-ai"
sourceTitle: "Preparing Your Brand for Agentic AI"
---
# Instacart

The exemplar of **Stage 3** adoption (integrating into third-party ecosystems — see [[framework-three-stages-agentic-adoption]]). Instacart built **'Ask Instacart'** internally, *and also* built a **ChatGPT plugin** and a **custom GPT** so users asking ChatGPT for recipes could have ingredients automatically added to an Instacart cart without leaving the OpenAI interface — an early bridge toward [[concept-full-ai-intermediation]].

**Enrichment note.** A believable Stage 3 example; the specific integration path is not confirmed by the enrichment search set.