Here’s how restaurants are using Toast’s AI chatbot
The company analyzed millions of conversations between operators and its Toast IQ assistant to see what they're asking.
July 14, 2026
When restaurant operators talk to AI chatbots, what do they talk about? Toast, the POS supplier to more than 170,000 U.S. restaurants, has some answers.
The company on Tuesday published data about how operators used its AI assistant, Toast IQ, in the first quarter of the year.
Toast launched Toast IQ in October 2025. The chatbot connects to the rest of Toast’s tech ecosystem, allowing operators to ask questions about their business and receive quick answers.
In the first quarter, operators at more than 125,000 restaurants started millions of threads with Toast IQ. Their most common questions were about sales and revenue (47%), followed by menu and inventory (34%) and guests and marketing (32%).
Far fewer used it to ask about local events or weather (5%), catering and reservations (1%), and forecasting and planning (1%).
Indeed, many requests revolved around recent results. For instance, the single most common prompt was “Create a short, easy-to-read daily briefing for my restaurant,” selected from a list of suggested prompts.
Others included “Show me my 2025 year in review,” “Refresh my menu items,” and “Show me today’s gross sales and highlight any notable variances from yesterday and from the same day last week.”
Besides using it to gauge performance, restaurants also turned to Toast IQ for ideas on how to grow their business and their profits. More than a quarter asked about menu optimization, and 13% asked for help with labor costs and efficiency.
These questions could be quite detailed. One operator asked, “Break down loyalty sales last week as a percentage of overall sales by order source. Highlight trends where loyalty-driven sales are strongest. Identify peak periods and recommend steps to help increase loyalty engagement.”
Some restaurant types relied on AI more than others. Those with more complex operations leaned on it more, with fine dining leading the way. Fine-dining locations had 29% more threads with Toast IQ than fast casuals.
Usage also differed by geography. Restaurants in Florida, Arizona, and Georgia averaged the highest number of threads per location, while adoption was slowest in Maine, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Alaska. That said, the restaurant with the most total threads in the quarter was in Alaska.
Toast also found that operators were “remarkably polite” to the AI assistant. “Please” and “thank you” appeared in 33,000 threads, compared to less than 200 F-bombs.
AI continues to transform the tech industry, and there has been much discussion about how it will impact restaurants. The Toast data provides a glimpse into how restaurants, especially smaller ones, are using it at this early stage.
About the Author
Joe Guszkowski
Senior editor, Restaurant Business
Joe Guszkowski is a senior editor with Restaurant Business covering technology and casual-dining chains.
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