The Exchanges

Q I guess related to that, it feels like one of the next mountains that you all are conquering has to do with the incorporation of AI into your product. And obviously you care more about how the product impacts the users, but I'm a little bit curious, you know, when did Instacart start focusing on AI and ML and how do you feel that this wave of generative AI differs?

A Yeah. You know, it's interesting because obviously AI is having a big moment, but Instacart has been focusing on AI since the very beginning. Like if you think about it, We are fundamentally a search engine. We do a billion searches a month, a quarter, sorry. And you know, it's all powered by AI. Every time a shopper goes to the store and a product is not on the shelves, we suggest replacement. We have suggested a billion replacement at this point. And like, that's all powered by AI. The way in which we match shoppers to go to specific stores, all powered by AI. So the list goes on. Um, but I think the thing that's Changing now with generative AI is that we are finally at a point where we can answer people's questions using natural language and the way they've been asking themselves these questions before. If you take a step back and you think about commerce online, it is very bizarre that we have forced human to train themselves to express their commerce needs in the form of keywords. I mean, people don't think about like, you know, how to put dinner on the table for the week, uh, in terms of like cilantro, eggplants, sour cream, which is exactly what they're currently typing on Instacart right now. Instead, what they think about is like, I have a budget of 300 bucks. I have to put, you know, X meals on the table. My daughter is lactose intolerant. We Traditionally eat Mediter…

AI assessment note: “Instacart has been focusing on AI since the very beginning”

Q I have to ask because you have multiple different experiences that are really deep and interesting in advertising from Facebook To what you're doing with retailers and CPG brands today. Um, if you zoom out, what predictions do you have for the impact of AI, uh, on advertising?

A Oh, I think it's going to be fantastic for ads. Um, I think it's really about much more personalization and really like this kind of ideal that, you know, you're going to get the perfect ad at the perfect moment for you. I think it's also going to be an explosion in creative. Uh, when you think about all of the variation of creative that can be created now, so that again, we match the right person to the right user, like that's going to be just Incredible. Uh, and that's gonna, again, make advertising a lot more relevant. And then the other thing is that I think advertising fundamentally follows the consumer products and the consumer use cases. I mean, that was one of our guiding principle at Facebook. And because we're gonna see such an explosion of new consumer experiences, I think as a result, we're gonna see new placements for ads that are gonna be interesting. So for example, We talked about, you know, ChatGPT plugins. We talked about Ask Instacart. Like, it is a very obvious place to start putting some sponsored content so that if you're asking, you know, what are the, like, best dairy-free snacks for my kids, you know, we can show you organic results, but we can also show you some sponsored results there. And these are placements that are, you know, gonna be really interesting for advertisers to tap into because, again, there's a much Clearer expression of intense and ju…

AI assessment note: “I think it's really about much more personalization and really like this kind of ideal”

Q you are very French, you wear lipstick and heels. Um, you've led some of the most iconic products and companies in the tech world, but you don't, uh, subscribe to some of the, let's say Silicon Valley monoculture. And you were clear, very conscious of that. Like, why is that important to you? Or how do you think about, um, like cultural image and how you present as a leader?

A Well, you know, um, I've been French since I was born. I have been wearing lipstick and high heels since I was 12, so it is such a big part of me that it was never a conscious decision. It was just about being me, and then when I arrived in Silicon Valley, a lot of people were commenting on that, and I was, like, pretty surprised because, you know, that was just me being me, and they were telling me, well, you know, especially as you move into Product development. You really need to blend in with the engineers. So like remove the makeup, tie up your hair, start wearing a hoodie. And I did that for one day at Facebook. No one recognized me. I would pass in the hallways. No one. Uh, and the reality is that it felt like a lot of effort and work not to be you. And when I thought about it, I realized like, you know, if I have a lot of effort and energy to Put into something. I'd much rather put it into building amazing products than trying to shape myself into something I'm not. And so, you know, I decided to embrace the French accent and embrace the heels and all of these things. And, you know, people around like adapted to it and then got used to it. And that was not a problem anymore. So, you know, better to be you basically.

AI assessment note: “I'd much rather put it into building amazing products than trying to shape myself”

Q Can you describe why you guys did an internal assistant versus just saying everybody, you know, go hit ChatGPT on your own or whatever, and sort of what's been interesting from a productivity perspective so far?

A So we just, we just released that. So hard to know on, Productivity, but it was a lot about like, you know, making it more accessible and making it easier for, uh, engineers to kind of deploy these things as a bunch of like keyword shortcuts and just making like the interface very user friendly so that engineers would feel like it's just a core part of their work now. The thing I would say about productivity is that, uh, you know, it's early to be able to measure any of that, but I think it's going to impact productivity well beyond engineering. A lot of people are talking about, you know, making software development easier, but I'll give you some other examples like our marketing team, for example, created an entire library of animated characters using AI and using, you know, limb mirroring technology and things like that. And now we have like 200 plus, you know, characters and animations that we can use in marketing. That's huge. That would have, you know, cost a ton of money if that was to be done, you know, uh, not using AI through an agency. Our legal team has, like, used AI to figure out, like, the, you know, how to detect the specific terms, the custom terms that we have with specific retailers so that we can track that in a much better way. Like, all of these things, they seem much more minor than, you know, launching a Fancy new AI thing, but they actually make the liv…

AI assessment note: “it was a lot about like, you know, making it more accessible”

Q sense. I guess related to that, given that you're a real, a real world company, a place where AI perhaps has shown a little bit less progress than the recent burst of LLMs is in things like autonomous vehicles and self-driving in terms of drones, delivery, automated picking. How do you think about the more sort of real world robotics side of this? And when do you think that's coming?

A Yeah, we've been following this incredibly closely, as you can imagine. And, you know, my take is, if we were starting from scratch, like rebuilding the grocery industry from scratch, we would probably not rebuild it the way it is. There will probably be fewer, like, stores the way they are. There will probably be more dark, automated stores. But the reality is that we're not starting from scratch. And when you think of Instacart, like, we have a network of 80,000 stores. These retailers are already paying a fixed cost on all of these stores. So it is actually incredibly efficient to be sending people to these stores. Like these retailers get incremental demand on top of that fixed cost base, and these stores are very close to the customer. And so a big part of why, uh, you know, these kind of automation initiatives have failed is not because the technology is not good and not there. It's because The economics are actually very hard to make work. Like if you want to have like a very large, you know, automated warehouse, you kind of need to put it further away from the customer so that you can aggregate all of these orders. Now you're talking about next day delivery instead of same day delivery. And we all know that customers want speed. And so you end up in a situation where yes, like you have great automation, but that's not reducing costs and that's not improving the customer…

AI assessment note: “if they don't help with either cost or customer experience... not going to get mass adoption”

Q regulatory body, which was established in the seventies, prevented any new nuclear power plant designed from being approved for 50 years. So is that really what we want? And so I just think there's a lot of naivety and sort of misconceptions in the industry right now around this stuff is kind of striking. What do you think is missing in terms of AI supporting biotech or supporting your efforts?

A I think people are already doing these things. I mean, you know, on the biotech side, recursion has been added for a while. Um, on the healthcare side, we're starting to see some, some, uh, real progress. I think it's all about like adoption, like on the healthcare side, I think it's all about adoption in the clinic and in the real workflows of doctors. And so the technology is there. It's more about like How do you embed that into clinical workflows in a way that actually enhances what doctors are doing? Because, I mean, think about your doctors. Like, when do you think they have the time to keep up with the latest research? Like, they don't. Like, they are overwhelmed by, you know, administrative work. They're seeing patients all the time. Like, most doctors do not read the latest research. That's something that can be solved through AI. Like, AI can do a great job summarizing the latest research that your doctor is actually current. Uh, but, you know, how do you integrate that so that doctors see that as an enhancer to their knowledge and something that, you know, they can rely on to, to, um, help? I think that's going to be critical. Obviously, accuracy is going to be, like, critical here. I think it's, uh, really important that we, uh, that all of the sources that go into whatever AI engine powers doctors' decisions Uh, to say the least. But again, there's nothing new ther…

AI assessment note: “It's more about like How do you embed that into clinical workflows”