Huck's Market, Loop Neighborhood Markets, Spinx onboard as Tote AI launches HQ Genie AI store solution
Tote AI has launched HQ Genie AI, with the aim of bringing a ChatGPT/Claude like experience to retail operations. It says that, instead of digging through dashboards and static reports, operators can ask questions of their live business data and get answers in seconds, with the system beginning to move beyond answering questions to monitoring operations and taking action.
This is in production with Loop Markets, Huck’s and Spinx.
Users can type questions such as what the latest discount on Diet Soda is, how many Monster Energy drinks a given store has left, what daily sales looked like over the last ten days, or the status of a specific card refund. As Tote runs the Point of Sale, HQ Genie draws on operational data from across the store, including the devices connected through Tote Device Cloud, which lets corporate help desk teams use it to spot and diagnose problems. For example, a help desk analyst can ask which devices across the chain need attention and see where issues are occurring, store by store.
Agentic workflows, now in beta, are built into HQ Genie and work to automate recurring tasks.
"Operators get answers in seconds instead of digging through reports, and HQ Genie handles the recurring checks so they don't have to," says Shyam Rao, Founder and CEO at Tote. "Because our Point of Sale connects to everything in the store through Device Cloud, HQ Genie can do things like diagnose why afternoon fuel flow rates dipped, not just report how sales performed yesterday. That's the shift we're driving in convenience retail, moving AI from a chatbot that answers questions to a system operators direct and take action with."
"Our associates already work with Genie every day at the counter, asking policy questions and getting answers without leaving the register," says Varish Goyal, CEO at Loop Neighborhood Markets. "Bringing that same plain language access to our operations data is the obvious next step. An answer in seconds beats digging through a report every time."
2026 RTIH Innovation Awards
AI will be a key focus area at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards.
The awards are now open for entries and celebrate global retail technology innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.
Our winners will be revealed at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards Ceremony, taking place at The HAC in Central London on Wednesday, 4th November.
Check out our 2025 winners here.
Our 2025 hall of fame entrants were revealed during a sold out event which took place at The HAC on 16th October and consisted of a drinks reception, three course meal, and awards ceremony presided over by award winning comedian, actress and writer Tiff Stevenson.
In his welcome speech, Scott Thompson, Founder and Editor, RTIH, said: “This is the awards’ fifth year as a physical event. We started off with just 30 people at the South Place Hotel not far from here, then moved to London Bridge Hotel, then The Barbican, and last year RIBA’s HQ in the West End.”
“But I’m conscious of the fact that, to quote the legend that is Taylor Swift, You’re only as hot as your last hit, baby. So, this year we’ve moved to our biggest venue yet, and also pulled in our largest number of entries to date and broken attendance records.”
He added: “This year’s submissions have without doubt been our best yet. To quote one of the judges: The examples of innovative developments across both traditional and digital retail spaces were truly remarkable.”
Congratulations to our winners, and a big thank you to our sponsors, judging panel, the legend that is Tiff Stevenson, and all those who attended our 2025 gathering.
