U.S. convenience stores, grocery stores and bottle shops are entering 2026 with a surprisingly durable outlook—but increasingly see technology and artificial intelligence as tools for controlling costs rather than chasing transformation. A new Toast survey of 340 retail operators found that 90% are experimenting with AI, while 75% plan to increase technology spending over the next 12 months.
Toast’s 2026 Voice of the Retail Industry Survey points to a pragmatic phase of AI adoption among smaller U.S. retailers. Businesses remain confident about their prospects, but their technology priorities are shifting toward operational efficiency, inventory control, employee productivity and margin protection.
The survey covered 340 decision-makers at convenience stores, grocery stores and bottle shops operating 16 or fewer locations. Respondents were not told Toast was conducting the survey, and the sample included both Toast and non-Toast customers. Toast conducted the survey from April 3 through April 20, 2026, with a reported margin of error of plus or minus five percentage points at a 95% confidence level.
The headline finding is that optimism has not disappeared despite an uncertain economic environment. Ninety-four percent of respondents rated their business health as good or excellent, while 66% said they were likely to open another location within the next year. Nearly three-quarters also reported increases in both revenue and profit during the previous year.
But beneath that confidence is a more defensive operating strategy.
Thirty-one percent of retailers identified simplifying operations as one of their three top business goals, a 12-percentage-point increase from the previous year’s survey. Profitability ranked at 32%, improving employee productivity at 27%, and adopting new technology at 25%. Inventory management also emerged as the leading operational pain point, increasing six points year over year.
That combination—growth ambitions paired with tighter operational discipline—is significant for the enterprise AI market.
Rather than treating AI as a standalone innovation program, smaller retailers increasingly appear to be evaluating it according to a more familiar software question: Can it reduce manual work, improve decisions or help employees operate more efficiently?
Toast’s survey suggests that answer is increasingly yes. Nine in ten respondents said they are experimenting with AI in some form. Forty-two percent are experimenting through technology vendors, 28% are using AI both through vendors and independently, and another 20% are experimenting independently. Eighty-eight percent said they believe AI can make them more efficient at work, while 92% said AI tools provide strong value for the money.
The applications retailers have in mind are also revealing. Decision-making led the expected benefits at 42%, followed by staff productivity at 40%, marketing performance at 39%, guest experience at 37%, and sales and revenue at 37%.
This is less about replacing retail workers with autonomous systems and more about embedding AI into existing workflows. That distinction matters because the survey also found that most retailers want humans involved in AI-generated work.
The pattern aligns with a broader enterprise AI market that is moving from experimentation toward selective deployment. McKinsey’s 2025 global AI survey found that 88% of respondents reported AI use in at least one business function, but only 7% said AI had been fully scaled across their organizations.
For retailers, the implication is that AI platforms will increasingly compete on practical integration rather than model performance alone. Point-of-sale systems, inventory platforms, accounting software, workforce applications and marketing tools can all become delivery channels for generative AI and AI automation.
Toast’s own technology data reinforces that point. Seventy-five percent of surveyed retailers said they plan to increase technology spending during the next year, compared with 64% in the previous survey. Yet the fastest-growing technologies are not necessarily the most futuristic: electronic shelf labels rose 11 percentage points, while order-ready boards increased nine points. Automated invoices also rose six points.
That creates a competitive opening for vendors such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Salesforce, as well as vertical software providers that can package AI into familiar business processes. The winning proposition for smaller retailers may not be access to the most powerful large language model, but an AI capability that works inside software they already use.
The economics of the AI infrastructure market point in the same direction. Gartner forecasts worldwide AI spending of $2.59 trillion in 2026, up 47% from 2025, with AI infrastructure representing more than 45% of total spending. Gartner also projects worldwide spending on AI models and platforms at $64 billion in 2026, a 63.4% increase year over year.
Those numbers describe a market far larger than retail, but they help explain why AI capabilities are rapidly becoming embedded in commercial software. As infrastructure and model costs are absorbed across larger platforms, smaller businesses can increasingly consume AI as a feature rather than build their own machine-learning infrastructure.
For convenience stores, grocery operators and bottle shops, that could make AI adoption less about technical sophistication and more about operational fit.
Toast’s findings therefore offer a useful snapshot of where applied AI is heading at the smaller end of the retail market: cautious spending, measurable productivity gains and increasing reliance on AI embedded within existing platforms.
The next phase will be less about whether retailers experiment with AI. According to the survey, that question is already largely settled. The harder question is whether those experiments can deliver repeatable improvements in inventory, labor productivity, decision-making and profitability.
Market Landscape
The retail AI market is moving toward embedded, workflow-oriented intelligence rather than standalone experimentation. Toast’s findings suggest that smaller operators are particularly interested in AI that improves decisions, employee productivity, marketing and customer experience without requiring major infrastructure investments.
This favors AI platforms that can integrate with point-of-sale, inventory, accounting, workforce and marketing systems. It also reflects a broader enterprise trend: Gartner expects AI models and platform spending to rise 63.4% in 2026, while McKinsey’s research indicates that widespread AI usage has not yet translated into organization-wide scaling.
For AI vendors, the competitive battleground is consequently shifting from simply offering access to generative AI models toward proving measurable business outcomes, controlling usage costs and fitting AI into existing workflows.
Top Insights
- Retail AI adoption is moving mainstream: Nine in ten surveyed operators are experimenting with AI, primarily to improve efficiency, decisions, productivity and customer-facing operations.
- Efficiency is replacing experimentation as the priority: Simplifying operations jumped 12 percentage points year over year as retailers respond to margin and inventory pressures.
- AI is increasingly delivered through existing software: Vendor-based experimentation outpaces purely independent AI adoption, favoring embedded enterprise AI platforms.
- Retailers remain growth-oriented: Sixty-six percent expect to open another location, suggesting technology investment is supporting expansion rather than simply defending against downturns.
- Human oversight remains important: Retailers generally want people involved in AI-generated work, highlighting the continued importance of governed AI automation.
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