The news: Square updated its AI, Bitcoin, and food and beverage platforms to help businesses tackle economic pressure and shifting customer expectations.

• Square AI: Square AI now can deliver hyperlocal insights like weather, events, reviews, and news. New features of the platform include dashboard widgets, conversation history, and mobile and voice access.
• Square Bitcoin: Merchants can accept digital currency with no processing fees for one year and automatically convert card sales into crypto.
• Food and beverage: Square’s restaurant platform now enables AI-powered voice ordering, Grubhub and multichannel menu integration, quicker kiosks, Bitcoin acceptance, and an Order Guide for smarter procurement.

Why this matters: Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are embattled on multiple fronts—narrowing margins, rising costs, and consumers’ increasing expectations for personalized service.

Square’s updates can help SMBs navigate economic turbulence. Restaurants can use Square AI to optimize staffing, tighten menus, and personalize customer service experiences; retailers can optimize their peak shopping hours and inventory.  Both industries benefit from AI’s ability to surface seasonal trends and popular items and promotions, turning more conversions.

Our take: Square’s AI-enhanced platform update helps the provider compete with rivals like Toast that have also rolled out AI solutions for restaurants. 

AI features are no longer a strong differentiator for POS providers. But Square’s features are the first time we’ve seen a provider use AI for hyperlocal insights that it can use to maximize opportunities like community events—rather than just gleaning insights based on things like recent sales patterns. 

Square is leaning into its local community bona fides, and pairing that marketing campaign with features that can tap that ethos could be a difficult strategy for other providers to replicate.

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