The grocery delivery giant is building a full-funnel ad platform combining short-form video and AI recommendations. Here's how that reshapes where your products get discovered.
Instacart is building a full-funnel advertising platform that mirrors strategies already proven on social media and AI-powered platforms. According to Ali Miller, the company's general manager of advertising, the grocery delivery platform is launching a short-form vertical video feed and integrating ads into its AI assistant. For brands and retailers selling through Instacart, this represents a significant shift in how products get discovered and promoted.
Short-form video feeds have become the primary discovery engine on social platforms. Instacart is adapting this model for grocery commerce. Rather than customers only searching for specific products, they'll browse a feed of short-form content, likely showcasing recipes, product features, or curated collections. Ads placed in this feed function as discovery tools, not just transaction closers. This means your product ads need to be visually compelling and contextual, not just bid-heavy.
Instacart's AI assistant currently helps customers find products and compose orders. The new ad integration means sponsored products can appear within AI-generated recommendations. When a customer asks the assistant for ideas ("What goes with this pasta?", "Suggest healthy snacks"), ads can surface in those suggestion results. This is distinct from search ads because the customer isn't searching for a specific product, they're asking for guidance.
For brands, this creates a new context where relevance matters as much as bid. An AI recommendation placement works best when your product genuinely fits the customer's stated need. A wine brand could bid on recommendations within a "dinner party" or "pairing" query, but only if the AI perceives your product as a strong match. Gaming this placement requires product data accuracy and category alignment.
Full-funnel marketing on Instacart now includes multiple touchpoints:
Brands need to think about how their products, messaging, and creative assets work across all three. A product that performs well in search may need different creative for video discovery. AI recommendation placements may require different bid strategies than search.
Instacart is one of the largest digital storefronts for CPG and fresh products in North America. Changes to how ads appear on the platform ripple across brand marketing budgets. As Miller's comments indicate, Instacart sees video and AI as the future of discovery. Brands that adapt now, by producing short-form video content and optimizing product data for AI recommendations, will outcompete those still relying solely on search.
Additionally, this strategy benefits Instacart's own monetization. More ad placements mean more revenue per customer session, which increases the platform's value proposition to advertisers. For brands, that means Instacart will likely continue expanding these placements, making early adoption a competitive advantage.
Instacart is cultivating full-funnel marketing with video, AI
Marketing Dive, June 29, 2026
How WebKing runs this
We help brands plan and execute full-funnel ad strategies across emerging retail and e-commerce channels. This means auditing where your products currently appear, building video assets optimized for discovery feeds, and structuring bids to win in both search and recommendation contexts. We also monitor how new ad placements (like AI assistant integrations) perform for your category and adjust spend accordingly.
Yes. Instacart is rolling out a short-form vertical video feed as a core discovery mechanism, so brands should produce or adapt existing short-form video content designed for mobile viewing and quick engagement. This is separate from your search ads and acts as a browsing/discovery channel.
Instacart's AI assistant will now recommend products to users, and ads can appear within those recommendations. This is a new touchpoint beyond search results, when customers ask the AI for suggestions, your products may appear as sponsored recommendations if your bid and relevance are strong.
You'll likely need to allocate budget across more ad formats: traditional search, video discovery feed, and AI-driven recommendations. We recommend testing each channel separately to see which drives the best return for your category, then shifting budget to the strongest performers.
Partially. The video discovery feed works similarly to social feeds, but Instacart's AI assistant placement is more akin to search ads, it appears when customers are actively looking for product suggestions, not just scrolling for content.
Sources
The Lab is original analysis by WebKing. We summarize and interpret developments from the sources above for industrial, commercial, and small business owners. Figures are reported as published by their sources.
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