Chris William Young (40 followers), juggling a 9-to-5, Ironman 70.3 training, and investing in a climbing gym, showed screen recordings of the AI building DoorDash grocery carts from Jewel-Osco ($130.02) and H Mart ($50.33), noting substitutions and missing items like Thai tea mix, then placing the order for delivery. He explained he avoids DoorDash himself out of exhaustion, and walked through the workflow: prompt, the AI searches memory, takes over the browser to shop, requires user approval befor
After years of spreadsheets and a vibe-coded app, a parent built an AI system (reported on X, via WhatAgentsCanDo, Oct 7) that maintains the family recipe library in Markdown, prints a weekly plan of about 15 meals, and produces a section-grouped shopping list. The list is pasted into AI to fill Instacart, with checkout still human; the bot template is shared for reuse.
A man gave the AI access to his Ocado account and digital copies of all his cookbooks. The AI built a database of his recipes, picks five for the week inside his budget including delivery, puts the ingredients in his basket and booked the delivery slot on its own. It also tells him which book and page each recipe comes from.
Palona built Cali BBQ owner Shawn Walchef an AI phone agent from his own voice, sampled from his YouTube videos, and it now answers the restaurant's phone as him. On Father's Day it fielded 150 calls without any staff stepping away from service, and the restaurant posted its biggest sales day ever at $26,000, up 18 percent on the year before.
Austin of YoMamasTech dragged a photo of his handwritten grocery list into AI, which read the handwriting and built the cart in Instacart at Aldi: ground beef, butter, non-fat plain Greek yogurt and five more items, subtotal $40.33, with checkout left to him in the Instacart app. He then pasted a chili recipe URL and the AI added 21 more ingredients (brown sugar, beef broth, kidney beans among them) to reach $70.72, deliberately skipping the recipe's 2 lbs of ground beef because the handwritten list already covered it.
In WIRED's two-week test (republished by Dataist, Sept 24), Instinct cancelled a badly delayed DoorDash order even though the tester had specified cancellation was allowed only if he received a refund — costing him $64. Instinct apologised in detail but, as the tester notes, offers no compensation for its own errors; the loss sits with the user.
$64at stake
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PCMag asked all three agents to find a named risotto recipe, match its ingredients to what a local Wegmans stocks, and load them into Instacart. Once the reviewer linked his Instacart account, the Dot found the recipe, matched the ingredients and filled the cart without a hitch, while the AI needed his password and a login code and added saffron nobody asked for.
Laura Legge (32K followers) challenged herself to feed a family of four on $30/week using pantry items (salmon, frozen mixed veggies, turkey breast, oils, seasonings). The 'the AI Atlas' app returned a seven-dinner plan with recipes, a missing-items grocery list, and a browser price comparison across Walmart, Stater Bros., and ALDI for zip code 92880 — Walmart won at $29.66.
Someone sent the AI two photos of the office fridge and had it figure out what needed restocking, comparing brands and items across the photos to build the shopping list.
His household setup sends him, his wife and the kids the week's meal choices to vote on. He scans pantry barcodes with his phone every few weeks to keep the inventory current. After the vote, a list is built from the recipes and weekly staples: The AI shops it through the Kroger API while the AI covers Walmart and Food Lion looking for cheaper items. He reviews the picks, adjusts, and schedules pickup at whichever store is cheapest for each part. The setup saves the family $20 to $30 a week.