Uber Eats launches Cart Assistant to streamline grocery shopping with AI-powered automation

Uber Eats adds AI assistant to help with grocery shopping

Uber announced a new AI feature called "Cart Assistant" for grocery shopping in its Uber Eats app. The new feature works a couple different ways. You can use text prompts, as you would with any other AI chatbot, to ask it to build a grocery list for you. Or you can upload a picture of your shopping list and ask it to populate your cart with all your favorite items, based on your order history. You can be as generic as you -- "milk, eggs, cereal" -- and the bot will make a list with all your preferred brands. And that's just to start out. Uber says in the coming months, Cart Assistant will add more features, including "full recipe inspiration, meal plans, and the ability to ask follow up questions, and expand to retail partners." But like all chatbots, Uber acknowledges that Cart Assistant may make mistakes, and urges users to double-check and confirm the results before placing any orders. It will also only work at certain grocery stores, with Uber announcing interoperability at launch with Albertsons, Aldi, CVS, Kroger, Safeway, Sprouts, Safeway, Walgreen, and Wegmans. More stores will be added in the future, the company says. Uber has a partnership with OpenAI to integrate Uber Eats into its own suite of apps. But Uber spokesperson Richard Foord declined to say whether the AI company's technology was powering the new chatbot in Uber Eats. "Cart Assistant draws on publicly available LLM models as well as Uber's own AI stack," Foord said in an email. Uber has been racing to add more AI-driven features to its apps, including robotaxis with Waymo and sidewalk delivery robots in several cities. The company also recently revived its AI Labs to collaborate with its partners on building better products using delivery and customer data.

Uber Eats' new Cart Assistant feature is an AI hack for your grocery shopping

If there's any area of your life that you might be willing to introduce more AI into, it's likely something as mundane as grocery shopping. That's what Uber is betting on with its new AI-powered in the Uber Eats app. Cart Assistant lets you "build grocery baskets faster and with less effort" by using AI to automatically fill your basket with items included on your shopping list. To use it, you search for a supported grocery store on the home screen of the app and tap the new Cart Assistant icon that appears at the top of the screen. From there, you can either manually type out a shopping list or upload a photo of a handwritten one, and Cart Assistant will fetch your requested items and add them to your basket. A screenshot of ingredients needed for a recipe will also suffice. Uber says its AI assistant will factor in availability before selecting an item and will also display prices and any available promotions. If you don't want something it recommends, you can delete or swap it for something else. Anything you forgot to add in the original list can be added later, and if you've purchased something in the past, these familiar items will be prioritized so you're less likely to need to make changes. Uber advises users that the new shopping feature is in beta right now, so might not perform perfectly. Cart Assistant is the latest development in the gradual AI-ification of Uber Eats. Last summer, Uber a suite of new features to the app, including AI-enhanced food images, AI menu descriptions and AI summaries or restaurant reviews.

Uber Eats launches AI cart assistant for grocery delivery

An Uber Eats bag in the Brooklyn borough of New York, US, on Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. Uber Eats is bringing artificial intelligence to your next grocery shopping list. The ride-hailing company said on Wednesday that its food delivery platform is debuting a new AI assistant that lets customers build a shopping cart using text or images, like handwritten grocery lists. Uber is offering the feature through dozens of large retailers, including Safeway, Albertsons and Kroger. The tool accounts for item preferences and store availability and allows users to edit selections, the company said. "Cart Assistant reflects how we think about AI at Uber: starting with real customer needs and building practical solutions within the app," said Praveen Neppalli Naga, Uber's technology, said in a release. "By grounding these features in real user behavior, we can build tools that feel helpful and intuitive."

Uber Eats wants to take grocery shopping off your to-do list

Driving the news: Uber announced the launch of Cart Assistant in the U.S. Wednesday, a beta feature that turns grocery lists and photos -- including handwritten notes or recipe screenshots -- into checkout-ready baskets in a few taps. * The tool launches on iOS this week, with an Android version planned. How it works: Cart Assistant is built directly into the Uber app for Uber Eats grocery shopping. * Users can access the feature by selecting a grocery store in the Uber Eats section of the app and tapping the purple Cart Assistant icon on the store page. * They can type a list or upload an image, and the assistant builds a cart using real-time availability and pricing, along with a user's past orders. What they're saying: Cart Assistant is part of Uber's broader strategy to build AI agents across its platform -- as long as they add clear value for users, Praveen Neppalli Naga, Uber's chief technology officer, told Axios. * "You're in full control of it," Naga said of ordering with the new feature. "Once the cart is built, you can go edit and change the quantity and then replace it with some other brand that you want." * Uber uses public AI models alongside its own technology, Naga said. What we're watching: The shift toward agentic AI is testing how much consumers are willing to hand over.