Instacart has acquired Arpalus, an AI-powered computer vision company that specializes in real-time shelf intelligence for grocery retail. The acquisition is designed to sharpen inventory accuracy across Instacart’s ecommerce fulfillment network and in-store operations, targeting one of the most persistent pain points in online grocery: out-of-stock items that trigger substitutions, cancellations, and eroded customer trust. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Founded in 2019 and operating with patents in both the United States and Europe, Arpalus developed technology that converts a brief smartphone video scan of a store shelf into a real-time, item-level inventory snapshot. Its computer vision models — built specifically for the complexity of real grocery environments, including inconsistent lighting, poor Wi-Fi connectivity, and thousands of visually similar products in close proximity — identify individual items with greater than 95% accuracy on average. The platform runs on any smartphone or camera-equipped device, a design choice that makes it immediately deployable across Instacart’s existing network of 600,000 shoppers without additional hardware requirements. The technology also includes in-app guidance that prompts shoppers to adjust their scanning technique in real time to maximize capture accuracy.
For Instacart, the deal extends a data infrastructure it has been building for over a decade — one grounded in more than 1.6 billion lifetime orders, real-time inventory views from nearly 100,000 stores across North America, and proprietary machine learning models purpose-built for grocery. Its shopper network visits large-format stores more than 15 times per day on average, generating over 10 million unique daily data points that continuously feed back into Instacart’s inventory models. Arpalus’ shelf scanning capability adds a new, proactive data stream to that system, moving Instacart closer to real-time shelf-level visibility rather than relying solely on historical order and substitution data.
The acquisition also extends to Instacart’s Caper Carts — AI-powered smart shopping carts equipped with external cameras that can generate shelf inventory updates as they move through store aisles. That capability strengthens Instacart’s Store View product, a real-time computer vision solution currently being piloted by retailers including McKeevers and Sprouts, and advances the company’s broader Physical AI strategy of connecting online and in-store grocery operations through a unified intelligence layer. Caper Carts have now scaled to more than 100 cities globally.
Arpalus’ technology and team will integrate into Instacart’s enterprise platform, which serves more than 2,200 retail banners. The combined shelf intelligence capability is expected to benefit consumers through more reliable order fulfillment, retailers through improved inventory management, brands through better on-shelf visibility, and shoppers through reduced friction and new earning opportunities.
KEY QUOTES:
“We believe the future of grocery retail is a unified experience powered by Instacart intelligence, where what happens in store connects seamlessly to ecommerce in real time. The Arpalus team has spent years building exceptional shelf intelligence technology, solving the problem of understanding what’s actually on store shelves, at any given moment. With our leadership in Physical AI for grocery retail and by activating our network of shoppers, we can feed even more accurate shelf information back into our models, delivering better outcomes for customers, shoppers, and our retail and brand partners.”
David McIntosh, Chief Connected Stores Officer, Instacart
“Arpalus was founded to solve one of retail’s most fundamental challenges: bridging the gap between what happens in-store and the decisions driving business performance. We built an AI platform that gives retailers real-time visibility into inventory and store execution, enabling faster and smarter decisions at scale. Joining Instacart is a transformative milestone. By combining Arpalus’ AI innovation with Instacart’s scale and retail reach, we are accelerating the future of intelligent retail and redefining how stores operate.”
Ofir Zilberberg, Founder and CEO, Arpalus
