Groceries & food delivery: 21 real cases

Turn a weekly meal plan into an Instacart grocery cart with Claude

Author Emily Ley set up a Claude Project to take over the weekly grocery thinking. Ley uploaded about 10–15 meals the family makes regularly and wrote house rules: preferred brands, organic and grass-fed choices, and staples never to buy, like spices and minced garlic, plus paper towels bought at Costco. Each week Ley uploads a screenshot of the meal plan from the Notes app, and Claude pulls ingredients from the saved recipes, checks the rules and fills the Publix cart through Instacart, listing what it assumed was already at home, anything it substituted and quantities that need attention. Ley reviews the cart and checks out personally. The first cart needed a few corrections: Claude learned that two pork shoulders means two whole roasts, not two pounds. Ley had Claude turn each correction into a permanent Project instruction.

Fill a Walmart cart with anti-inflammatory groceries with Claude in Chrome

DouglasCountyCO.com signed in to Walmart.com, opened the Claude in Chrome extension and gave it one short prompt: build an anti-inflammatory grocery cart with low sugar, few seed oils and wild-caught over farmed, with no budget but shopping as if spending its own money. Claude worked through protein and dairy, then produce, pantry and drinks without further instructions, narrating its choices. The cart came to 34 items and $218.70 before tax; the two sockeye salmon fillets at $12.96 each were the priciest line. It picked yerba mate and a zero-sugar energy drink over sugary options, but never flagged that the rotisserie chicken and hummus likely contain seed oils. Walmart's hold-to-verify bot check popped up a handful of times, and each time a person had to step in, do it and hand control back.

Cut a family grocery bill by planning meals from fridge photos with ChatGPT

Tom's Guide's Amanda Caswell asked ChatGPT for one trick to lower a grocery bill. It said to photograph the fridge, freezer and pantry, ask for five meals using what was already there, and buy only what those meals still needed. It came back with dishes like chicken tacos and bean and tomato soup, leaving Caswell needing maybe $40 of filler items instead of the usual $200. Caswell says the weekly spend went from about $350–$400 to about $200–$250.

Fill an Instacart cart for a risotto recipe with an AI agent: ChatGPT Dots did it, Gemini Spark froze

For PCMag, Ruben Circelli asked three agents to find J. Kenji López-Alt's no-stir risotto recipe, research the best version of each ingredient at the local Wegmans and add them to an Instacart cart. ChatGPT's Dots, once Instacart was connected, found the recipe, researched the ingredients and filled the cart without issue. Meta's Muse got there slowly, needed Circelli to log in and enter a verification code, and added saffron threads that aren't in the recipe. Gemini's Spark found the recipe and proposed ingredients but couldn't access the account, tried to take over Chrome and froze.

Ask Gemini to order dinner from a delivery app (it refused on an unsupported phone)

Android Police's Ali Salman Zia asked Gemini on their Pixel 8 to order a chicken burger, then to order it from Foodpanda; both times it gave the same refusal and told them to use a delivery app themselves. They found Google limits food and ride ordering to the Pixel 10 series and Galaxy S26, Z Flip 8 and Z Fold 8, for users 18+ in the US or Korea, with supported apps such as DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub.

Fill a Walmart pickup cart with 26 meal-plan groceries using ChatGPT computer control, stopping before checkout

With school and sports starting, Arthur Sullivan had ChatGPT make a meal plan and grocery list, then logged into Walmart and asked it to arrange the order: pickup time, store brands over name brands, and no purchase without review. Using ChatGPT Work's computer control, it added all 26 items to the cart; the only mistake was one lemon instead of two. Sullivan reviewed the order before buying.

Hand a family's weekly grocery shop to ChatGPT's in-app browser and find it takes nearly an hour

Betting they could do the weekly shop in five minutes, Kirk Simmons connected ChatGPT to the family Google Calendar to find a delivery window, gave it a spreadsheet of favourite recipes and household needs, and let its in-app browser shop. It asked what food was left, suggested a meal plan, turned it into a list, chose between two supermarkets on budget and fresh food, and clicked items into the cart one by one. It took nearly an hour, picked a fruit-and-veg box when asked for a fruit box, and spent time comparing ethical chocolate brands; the shop arrived on time and well under budget.

Make a Costco weekly grocery list for under $100 with ChatGPT (real prices came to $167)

GOBankingRates' Kathryn Jackson asked ChatGPT for a full Costco shopping list for the week under $100; it said the list was for a family of two and totalled $95. On Costco's website the same groceries came to $167, some items only came in larger quantities, and the list left out dairy like milk and cheese, tomatoes, other green vegetables, potatoes and other meats.

Order a customised fast-food meal for delivery with ChatGPT agent

A Wendy's innovation executive gave ChatGPT agent one prompt to order a customised combo, drink and Frosty from wendys.com for delivery, including their payment info. They say it navigated the site like a real user, hit snags, worked around them and placed the order; a misread CVV field almost broke it.

Order a pizza by phone with a coupon using Grok Bot

The poster says Grok Bot found that their pizza shop had moved, set up a call, found a coupon that saved $8.99 and placed the order by phone; they called the shop afterwards to confirm the order was real and shared the call recording.

Build a grocery cart and check out inside ChatGPT with the Instacart app

TechRadar's reviewer connected Instacart to ChatGPT and asked for infant formula, vanilla ice cream and fruit; ChatGPT suggested products, built the cart quickly and opened a checkout window in the chat confirming items, payment and address.

Put together an Uber Eats dinner order with Gemini task automation

The Verge's Allison Johnson had Gemini's task automation on a Pixel 10 Pro and Galaxy S26 Ultra build their Saturday dinner order on Uber Eats. It correctly added two half portions to make one chicken teriyaki combo, struggled to find a side of greens and made a couple of wrong turns, and took about nine minutes, stopping before the final confirm so they could check and place the order.

Order a pizza to your door with ChatGPT agent

Tom's Guide's Alex Hughes asked ChatGPT agent to order a pizza to their address and ask before paying; it worked through pop-ups and site obstacles and handed back at checkout for their details and payment, taking about 15–20 minutes. Asked for a pizza from one specific restaurant, it gave up on the restaurant's own site, searched Deliveroo at length and finally found it on Uber Eats.

Fill a Walmart delivery cart from past purchases with ChatGPT Atlas

ZDNet's reviewer had Atlas agent mode order wood putty, caulk and screws from their local Walmart for same-day delivery; after they signed in manually and told it to use their past purchases, it found the right brands in their order history and loaded the cart, leaving them to pick a window, tip and pay. About 10 minutes in all.

Poster says:About 10 minutes

Plan a meal and order the groceries with ChatGPT agent

Sky Canaves tried OpenAI's example 'plan and buy ingredients to make Japanese breakfast for four'; ChatGPT agent shopped their local H-E-B through Instacart, needed them to take over to log in, filled a roughly $130 cart with things they already had, asked before paying and the trimmed order arrived on time. 'It worked, yes', they wrote, but with plenty of friction.

Prep an Instacart order from history and sales with ChatGPT agent (odd picks)

Given access to Instacart and told to prep an order from the poster's history and current sales, ChatGPT agent picked items with reasoning the poster found oddly generic ("cereal, which is on sale and a usual part of groceries").

Order groceries from H-E-B with ChatGPT agent (access denied)

The poster tried to order groceries from H-E-B in Austin with ChatGPT agent, but it failed because access was denied.

Find local takeout deals under a budget with ChatGPT agent

The Tom's Guide author uses ChatGPT agent to scour delivery apps and local restaurants for family takeout deals under a set budget.

Order weekly meal delivery with ChatGPT agent

ChatGPT agent logged into Gym Meals Direct, chose meals and sizes, picked Monday delivery and applied a discount.

Fill an online grocery cart from a handwritten list with ChatGPT agent

ChatGPT agent transcribed 15 of 16 items from a photographed shopping list (missing onions), found the nearest Harris Teeter and added them to the cart; a safety monitor first blocked the Kroger login, but after the user said they'd log in themselves and entered the password, it ordered the groceries.

Order groceries from a 16-item list with OpenAI Operator

Operator misread parts of a 16-item grocery list and added only 13 items to the cart even after corrections; the author concluded it wasn't ready for real use.