This year’s NACS Show was buzzing, with innovation taking center stage. As the industry’s bellwether, it made one thing clear about where convenience retail is headed: AI is no longer a side conversation. It was the topic du jour on the show floor, in the speaking sessions, and over drinks at the parties.

Our booth was busy from the opening bell. Retailers continued to want to see what a modern point-of-sale experience could look like, but the draw was the show debut of HQ Genie AI, a ChatGPT- and Claude-style experience built for convenience retail. Visitors asked questions about their stores in plain language, dug into live operational data, and took action, all from a simple chat interface. This is not your grandad’s convenience store.

What we heard lined up with what others spotlighted around the show: a clear focus on putting AI to practical use. Here are the five takeaways we’re bringing home.

1. Retailers want to know what AI can do in their stores today. Conversations centered on practical outcomes for their specific businesses. Retailers asked how AI would help their own stores, teams, and customers, which shows the industry has moved from curiosity to evaluation.

2. Seeing it work beats hearing about it. AI claims are easy to find, so retailers asked to see the technology handle real scenarios. Live demos across point-of-sale, self-checkout, kitchen management, online ordering, and analytics let visitors judge the power of Tote for themselves.

3. The best AI use cases solve everyday problems. HQ Genie AI gave visitors an easy first look: ask a question, get an answer, take an action. The strongest reactions came next, when they watched AI troubleshoot hardware on the fly for site reliability engineering, surface business analytics, and spot unanswered questions that point to gaps in associate training.

4. AI has a job for every part of the business. Headquarters teams, store associates, and shoppers all need different things from AI. Visitors responded to seeing it built for each group, from operators checking performance across stores to associates getting training support to shoppers using a consumer experience.

5. Retailers expect software to change as fast as their business. Visitors reacted when software was adjusted live, with a new button, pictures on the buttons, or a new integration turned on. Many retailers know the legacy path, which usually involves an SOW and a six-figure capital investment, so fast configuration stood out as a sign of what modern software, like Tote, can do.

Thank you to everyone who stopped by. We’re looking forward to continuing the conversation with retailers as AI becomes part of everyday store operations. If you’ll be at C-StoreTEC next week in the Chicago area, let us know!

To learn more about HQ Genie AI or to request a demo, reach out at https://tote.ai/contact.

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