Tote AI has launched HQ Genie AI, a new AI agent designed specifically for convenience store operations, giving retailers a natural-language interface for querying live operational data and automating recurring tasks across their stores.
The Redwood City, California-based company said HQ Genie AI is available now to Tote customers and is designed to replace many traditional back-office workflows that require operators to navigate menus, apply filters, and search through static reports.
Instead, employees can ask the system questions in plain language and receive answers drawn directly from the data they are authorized to access.
Operators can ask questions such as how many units of a particular product remain at a specific location, what daily sales have looked like over the past 10 days, what discount is currently being applied to a product, or the status of a particular card refund.
Tote said the conversational interface allows operators to investigate issues interactively rather than repeatedly building and running separate reports.
HQ Genie AI extends beyond sales analytics because Tote’s platform also operates the retailer’s point-of-sale infrastructure.
Through Tote Device Cloud, the AI agent can analyze information from devices connected throughout a store or chain.
That gives corporate help desk teams the ability to ask which devices across their store network need attention and identify where specific technical problems are occurring.
For example, the system can investigate operational issues such as why fuel flow rates declined during a particular period, combining point-of-sale and device data rather than simply reporting transaction performance.
Tote is also adding agentic workflows, currently in beta, that allow HQ Genie AI to proactively perform recurring tasks on a retailer’s behalf.
Operators can schedule a morning sales brief for every location, hourly terminal health checks, end-of-day close checks that identify unclosed cash drawers, or ongoing monitoring of large refunds.
Results from those automated workflows are posted back into the HQ Genie AI conversation at the selected interval.
The work can continue even after a user closes the browser tab.
Chats are private by default but can be shared with colleagues, allowing another employee to continue a troubleshooting or operational workflow without having to start over.
HQ Genie AI also supports voice interaction.
Tote said the system respects each employee’s existing permissions, so users receive answers only based on information they are already authorized to access.
The company is also maintaining human oversight for consequential actions. Any action that changes store data requires user approval before execution.
Tote is positioning HQ Genie AI as part of a broader move from AI systems that simply answer questions toward software agents capable of continuously monitoring retail operations and completing defined tasks.
The platform is already in production with Huck’s Market, Loop Neighborhood Markets, and Spinx, with additional functionality expected throughout the year.
HQ Genie AI joins two existing AI products in Tote’s platform.
Associate Genie AI is designed for frontline store employees and allows workers to ask policy questions and create support tickets without leaving the register.
Tote has updated Associate Genie AI with usage analytics that identify unanswered questions and potential training gaps, broader file support for its knowledge base, and feedback capabilities intended to improve answer accuracy over time.
Consumer Genie AI, Tote’s shopper-facing assistant, has also been expanded to handle customer service questions.
The system generates those answers solely from the retailer’s own knowledge base, which Tote said is intended to improve the reliability of customer-facing information.
The three Genie products operate alongside Tote’s broader commerce platform, which combines point of sale, back-office software, foodservice capabilities, device connectivity, and AI-powered store operations within a single cloud environment.
Tote sees convenience retail as particularly suited to operational AI because stores generate large amounts of transaction and equipment data while employees frequently need to make decisions quickly without leaving the sales floor.
The company is developing HQ Genie AI around the idea that an operator should be able to ask a business question directly rather than first determining which report contains the relevant data.
Automated workflows add another layer by allowing the system to repeatedly perform checks that employees would otherwise need to complete manually throughout the day.
The launch follows Tote’s release of online ordering in August 2026 and comes shortly before the NACS Show, where the company plans to demonstrate HQ Genie AI and its broader product portfolio at booth C6178.
Tote said additional HQ Genie AI capabilities will be introduced throughout the year as it expands the agent’s ability to analyze and act across convenience store operations.
KEY QUOTES:
“Operators get answers in seconds instead of digging through reports, and HQ Genie handles the recurring checks so they don’t have to. 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.”
Shyam Rao, Founder And CEO Of Tote
“Our associates already work with Genie every day at the counter, asking policy questions and getting answers without leaving the register. 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.”
Varish Goyal, CEO Of Loop Neighborhood Markets
