Toast, a prominent technology platform serving the restaurant and retail sectors, has officially launched Toast IQ Team. This new labor management solution is designed to streamline operations for business owners. Concurrently, the company announced major upgrades to Toast IQ Grow, its comprehensive marketing suite originally debuted in 2026.
Empowering Operators with AI
Managing payroll, scheduling, and marketing with tight profit margins remains a core challenge for the industry. According to Toast’s 2026 Voice of the Restaurant Survey, 86% of operators are currently experimenting with artificial intelligence to optimize their businesses. Toast aims to integrate these capabilities directly into its existing platform, ensuring that AI tools are grounded in real-time sales, employee, and guest data rather than operating as disjointed external software.
«We continue to build on our vision for the Toast IQ ecosystem to take on the heavy lifting for restaurants and retailers, especially in the heat of a busy shift,» stated Mike Miller, Chief Product Officer at Toast. «Toast is building agentic solutions that deliver real outcomes.»
Key Features of Toast IQ Team
The Toast IQ Team solution provides a suite of tools focused on forecasting, intelligent scheduling, and staff engagement to improve operational productivity:
- Sales Forecasting: Utilizes historical POS data to help owners predict demand and manage labor costs more accurately.
- Scheduling Agent (Beta): Uses AI to generate full staff schedules in seconds based on availability, projected sales, and overtime risks.
- Team Performance: Allows operators to run in-platform gamification contests, with live leaderboards accessible via the MyToast app.
- Payroll and Tips: Features automated tip pooling calculations and integrated benefits administration.
Data shows these tools are effective: restaurants utilizing the Toast scheduling solution reported an average of 41% fewer overtime hours compared to those that did not.
Expanding Marketing Capabilities with Toast IQ Grow
The upgraded Toast IQ Grow combines AI agents with human marketing support to help restaurants increase guest retention and discoverability. Key updates include:
- SEO Agent (Beta): Continuously scans online presence to provide recommendations for improving local search performance.
- Reviews Agent: Automatically prompts satisfied guests for reviews and creates a feedback loop for unhappy customers.
- Offers Agent (Beta): Delivers personalized customer incentives based on transaction history rather than generic discounts.
Future Innovations and Platform Updates
Toast is continuing to push into new territory via its Test Kitchen, offering customers early access to features like a Menu Agent for optimization and an Answering Agent designed to handle incoming phone calls. Furthermore, the company has expanded its language support, with the platform now available in Spanish, Simplified Chinese, and Québec French to better support diverse, multilingual teams.
Other notable updates include Toast Fuel, which integrates fuel payments into the retail platform, and new Toast Tables features, such as seamless checkout and event ticketing, aimed at modernizing the guest dining experience.