Enhancing Operational Efficiency

Toast, a global technology platform tailored for the restaurant and retail sectors, has officially introduced Toast IQ Team. This new labor management solution aims to assist operators in streamlining complex back-office tasks. Alongside this launch, the company has significantly enhanced Toast IQ Grow, its comprehensive marketing suite originally introduced in 2026. Together, these tools represent a strategic move toward an "agentic" platform designed to handle the heavy lifting of business operations while providing actionable insights for owners.

As margins remain tight, many operators are turning to artificial intelligence. According to Toast’s 2026 Voice of the Restaurant Survey, 86% of operators are currently experimenting with AI. However, disconnected tools often add to the administrative burden. Toast aims to solve this by integrating these new features directly into its existing platform, leveraging proprietary sales, employee, and guest data to ensure AI recommendations are contextually relevant while keeping humans in the loop.

Optimizing Labor and Productivity

Toast IQ Team combines forecasting, scheduling, and gamification to help managers control labor costs. Scheduling is often a difficult balancing act, but data shows that restaurants using the Toast IQ scheduling solution saw an average of 41% fewer overtime hours per employee compared to those that did not.

Key components of Toast IQ Team include:

  • Sales Forecasting (AI): Utilizes historical point-of-sale data to predict demand and guide staffing needs.
  • Scheduling Agent (Beta): Automates schedule creation based on employee availability and expected sales, transforming a manual task into a quick review process.
  • Team Performance: Enables in-platform staff contests with live leaderboards via the MyToast app. This has proven effective, with some businesses reporting a 10% sales lift on featured menu items.
  • Payroll Success Partners (PSP): Offers dedicated human support to assist operators with payroll confidence.
«Toast IQ Team has saved me countless hours—from payroll, to scheduling, to contests, to tip management, and tip pooling policy. All of it together saves me about 10 to 15 hours a week,» notes Tricia Rowley, Director of Operations at Madi Group.

Advanced Marketing with Toast IQ Grow

The updated Toast IQ Grow suite pairs agentic AI with human expertise to manage digital marketing. New additions include an SEO Agent that monitors online discoverability and provides tailored recommendations to close gaps in search performance, and a Reviews Agent that automatically prompts guests for feedback. According to internal data, these tools have already helped businesses see significant improvements in their online reputations, including a 39% increase in total reviews for some users.

Future Innovation and Expansion

Toast continues to expand the capabilities of its ecosystem through the "Test Kitchen," allowing existing customers early access to new AI agents:

  • Menu Agent: Provides automated pricing recommendations and optimizes menu descriptions.
  • Answering Agent: Manages incoming calls to reduce interruptions for staff.
  • Configurable Agents: Allows operators to build custom AI tasks—such as tracking missed clock-outs or unusual voids—using prebuilt templates.

Additionally, Toast has improved accessibility by rolling out support for Spanish, Simplified Chinese, and Québec French across its web and hardware interfaces, ensuring multilingual teams can operate the system in their preferred language. Further updates include integrated fuel and retail payment solutions and enhanced features for Toast Tables, such as seamless checkout and event ticketing.