I grew up in a family where the math of grocery shopping was as stressful as paying the mortgage. My parents worked multiple jobs, always overtime, and we stretched every dollar with sale items, coupons and “double coupons.” Healthy food wasn’t a moral choice; it was an economic impossibility. A bag of apples cost more than a box of mac and cheese, and the latter would last longer in the pantry. Grocery decisions were made for us due to our razor-thin budget.
Millions of Americans live in that same calculation today. Nearly 40 million people rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and in many homes, limited benefits mean dinner often comes from the cheapest shelf rather than the healthiest one. So is it any surprise that a higher risk of chronic illnesses hits low-income communities hardest and drives up taxpayer-funded health care costs the most?
In Washington, AI is on everyone’s mind. Congress has held multiple hearings on how artificial intelligence can help meet our federal policy goals in a more efficient and timely manner. And in the wake of the Big Beautiful Bill Act’s passage, I can’t think of a single program more urgently in need of AI integration than SNAP.
Figuring out how to feed beneficiaries with fewer federal dollars isn’t a “wouldn’t that be nice” outcome — it’s a must-solve issue for legislators on both sides of the aisle. And unlike many complex policy challenges, this one has a fix that could be implemented nationwide in months, not years.
At r4 Technologies, we’ve prioritized applying AI to solve our nation’s most pressing issues. The most meaningful way we’ve done so is through our proprietary AI technology, which we used to develop our SmartFood Program and app, built from the lessons we learned as the founding team of priceline.com.
Our app matches excess supplies of healthy food in real time to SNAP recipients while increasing retailer and producer profitability and directing SNAP shoppers toward healthier, nutrient-dense foods. By discounting fresh foods in real time, our AI technology can stretch SNAP benefits two to three times further while putting more nutrient-dense foods on tables.
The AI-enabled result is that SNAP households are incentivized to purchase healthier foods; taxpayers benefit from lower long-term health care and SNAP program costs; policymakers get more value out of every taxpayer dollar without drastically cutting benefits; and the planet benefits from reduced food waste as items that would otherwise be tossed find their way to family dinner tables instead.
Critics portray AI as risky, untested, and in some cases, dangerous. When applied recklessly, it can be all of the above. But in the case of life-sustaining benefits like SNAP, the danger lies in not using it. Every week we delay AI implementation is another week that families go without the food they need, health care systems bear avoidable costs, taxpayers foot a bigger bill, and another $5 billion in perfectly good food is thrown away.
The beauty of applying AI to SNAP is that it meets people where they already are: the supermarket. Our SmartFood app helps them plan their meals by directing them to dietitian-curated recipes and ingredients that make them healthier. Most importantly, it requires no new bureaucracy. It simply provides the knowledge and guidance most of us would want if we had a dietitian and our grandmas — the coupon clippers in every family — embedded in an app, identifying the best grocery store options for our health, wallets and budgets.
The technology already works. The need is urgent. The only question left is whether we have the political will to put it into action — and save millions of lives, as well as hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, in the process.
Paul Breitenbach is a founder of priceline.com, and CEO of r4 Technologies.
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