Toast IQ Transforms Restaurant Management: The Conversational AI Revolution Arrives for Toast Customers

AI Takes Center Stage in Hospitality

The restaurant industry is undergoing a fundamental shift. Recent data reveals that over 81% of restaurant decision-makers plan to adopt more AI solutions in their operations—a clear signal that intelligent automation is no longer optional but essential. For Toast platform users, this evolution has arrived in the form of an intelligent conversational assistant built on comprehensive datasets from approximately 148,000 customer locations worldwide.

This new AI-powered tool represents a significant evolution from Toast’s earlier smart feature set. Rather than just delivering data, it proactively surfaces insights and enables operators to execute tasks—updating menus, adjusting schedules, analyzing performance—all through natural conversation.

How Toast AI Reshapes Daily Operations

The core value proposition is straightforward: operators spend less time searching for answers and more time taking action. By tapping into real-time and historical transaction data alongside contextual factors like local weather and upcoming events, the platform generates personalized recommendations tailored to each business.

Three key capabilities define the experience:

Intelligent Insights on Demand - Rather than requiring managers to pull reports manually, the system continuously monitors sales trends, labor patterns, and menu performance. It surfaces opportunities proactively—flagging items with unusual sales fluctuations, identifying staffing gaps, or highlighting menu optimization chances. When an operator needs specific answers (“Which shifts drive the highest labor costs?” or “What single change would improve my business most?”), the system delivers detailed, actionable responses using conversational language.

Action Through Conversation - The assistant understands hospitality terminology and operations. Whether an operator needs to remove all items containing a specific ingredient, adjust an employee’s shift clock-out time, or add a new menu item, these tasks execute directly from the chat interface in seconds—eliminating the need to navigate complex menus and settings.

Personalized Recommendations - A “For you” feed continuously suggests next steps based on business performance. The system might recommend retiring underperforming dishes, suggest staffing adjustments ahead of a major local event, or propose menu enhancements based on sales data patterns.

Real-World Impact

Early users report transformative operational changes. One independent bakery operator noted that complex reporting—which previously consumed late-night hours scrolling through filters and tabs—now takes five seconds. The insights gained have immediate practical value: when testing seasonal offerings, operators can instantly model profit margins; when analyzing beverage sales, they can identify top-performing staff members and reward accordingly.

This speed-to-insight advantage compounds across decision-making. Instead of data collection constraining business choices, operators gain confidence to test new products, adjust pricing, or optimize staffing in real time.

Strategic Partnership: Toast and Coca-Cola Collaborate on Beverage Optimization

Recognizing that beverage optimization represents one of the highest-value applications of AI in restaurants, Toast has partnered with The Coca-Cola Company to build an exclusive feature within its AI assistant. This collaboration creates a dedicated capability focused on beverage sales performance.

The feature surfaces beverage-related insights through the personalized recommendation feed, then suggests specific menu optimizations—such as enhanced product photography and descriptions for Coca-Cola offerings—designed to influence ordering behavior. Operators can implement these suggestions with minimal friction, directly improving a high-margin revenue stream often overlooked in digital ordering channels.

Evolving Capabilities and Future Roadmap

The assistant was developed in close collaboration with restaurant operators and continues to improve. The platform plans to expand internationally and introduce specialized capabilities for single-unit operators, multi-location management, and enterprise restaurant groups. New data sources, additional action capabilities, and refined skills will be added progressively across the Toast ecosystem.

The underlying vision positions AI not as a novelty but as essential infrastructure—the operating system’s “right hand” helping restaurant teams make faster, more informed decisions across every operational dimension.