The news: Fiserv and Toast launched AI tools that analyze in-store shopping behaviors and streaming retail operations at the National Retail Federation Show in New York.

• Fiserv’s Unknown Shopper lets merchants connect card activity to customer profiles with demographic information for vendors without rewards programs. This helps merchants better target their marketing efforts. 
• And Toast IQ, an AI assistant, can help with inventory, pricing, and catalog insights.

Why this matters for merchants: SMBs use on average 2.2 systems to manage their daily operations, per a PYMNTS Intelligence survey, signalling the degree to which necessary tools for shops are scattered across multiple tools. 

And over half of SMBs want marketing (59%), inventory (52%), and business expansion (52%) tools at their disposal to navigate economic uncertainty, per a Marqeta report.

Fear about viability also runs rampant: More than two-thirds of SMB operators feared that their businesses may go under last year, per Revenued’s end-of-year survey. AI-generated customer profiling and more efficient store management can help these sellers optimize their businesses for more reliable profitability.

Implications for POS providers: AI rollouts can give merchants personalized business solutions at a time where economic uncertainty, geopolitical instability, and tariffs threaten profits. 

As core POS software starts to become more similar, AI tools can act as a differentiator that can deliver meaningful value for businesses that want bespoke solutions.