Watch: When Algorithms Set the Price

When Algorithms Set the Price: How Dominant Corporations Inflate Costs and Undermine Competition

An ILSR Virtual Event

Prices are changing faster — and more erratically — than ever before. ILSR convened leading experts for a virtual event to unpack a key driver of this issue plaguing the US economy: pricing algorithms. 

Algorithms are often described as neutral tools that make markets more efficient. But evidence shows they are inflating costs in ways largely invisible to the public. The conversation spotlighted how opaque algorithms deployed by corporations, such as Amazon, Instacart, and major landlords, are inflating prices, undermining competition, and threatening independent businesses and communities. It also unpacked how different tactics — including algorithmic collusion, surveillance pricing, and platform-driven price steering — are shaping prices across everyday goods and services — and why these tactics have often gone undetected. 

The panel was moderated by Geoffrey Fowler, a former Washington Post technology columnist, who has investigated these issues for decades. He guided an informative discussion featuring: 

• Doha Mekki, former Acting Assistant Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice –– who offered her insight as a former government enforcer and outlined concrete policy fixes to detect and restrain algorithmic price fixing.
• Stacy Mitchell, Co-Executive Director, Institute for Local Self-Reliance –– unearthed how states are stepping up to address this issue.
• Ted Tatos, Economist, EconOne Research and University of Utah –– explained how Amazon’s pricing algorithms are designed to maximize revenue and why we need more transparency on these pricing mechanisms. 
• Katie Wells, Senior Fellow, AI Now Institute –– spotlighted her research on the impact of pricing algorithms in the grocery sector and identified where we need more research on this issue. 

The event built on ILSR’s research and webinar on Amazon’s growing capture of government procurement and use of algorithmic pricing to squeeze more public dollars. 

Whether you’re a community advocate, policymaker, independent business owner, or journalist, this conversation will help make sense of algorithmic pricing — and what it will take to stop its most harmful abuses.

You can follow Geoffrey Flower’s writing on Substack, and below is further reading from the speakers on this important topic.

• Consumer Reports and Groundwork Collaborative, Instacart’s AI-Enabled Pricing Experiments May Be Inflating Your Grocery Bill, CR and Groundwork Collaborative Investigation Finds, December 2025.
• Ted Tatos, Artificial Intelligence and Algorithmic Pricing in Practice: Machine Learning Methods and Antitrust Implications, December 2025.
• Ted Tatos, How Algorithms on Amazon ‘Look to Raise Prices 24/7’ (and Why That Prime Day ‘Deal’ Really Isn’t), The Sling, December 2025.
• US Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, Justice Department Files Lawsuit and Proposed Consent Decrees to End Long-Running Conspiracy to Suppress Worker Pay at Poultry Processing Plants and Address Deceptive Abuses Against Poultry Growers, July 2022.
• US Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, Justice Department Sues Six Large Landlords for Algorithmic Pricing Scheme that Harms Millions of American Renters, January 2025.