Real AI tools and use cases for shops, cafés, salons, takeaways and independent retail. Each one is a short summary with a link to the source, so you can see for yourself.
LaunchEPOS and sales insightRotas and staff costsUK available
Ask your till system simple questions about sales, staff and customers
Square launched Square AI in the UK in February 2026, free and built into Square. Owners type questions such as how many of an item sold last week or how today compares with a year ago, and it answers from their own sales, transaction, staff and customer data. It can also bring in local weather, events and reviews. It is in open beta for UK Square owner accounts.
A small takeaway chain uses AI forecasting to order only the ingredients it needs
Go Mezza, a small chain of Turkish takeaways in London, kept over-ordering ingredients. It brought in Nory, restaurant software that uses AI to forecast orders and stock and suggest how much of each ingredient to buy each week. Setting up took effort, as every ingredient in every dish needed a portion size and cost. ReLondon, which part-funded the change, reports savings of about £1,000 a month on food purchasing in the first six months.
Ask your EPOS about sales, stock and products as you would a colleague
Lightspeed launched Lightspeed AI, a conversational assistant inside Lightspeed Retail and Lightspeed Restaurant. Owners ask questions in everyday language and get answers without digging through reports. Lightspeed says it will grow into a more autonomous agent during 2026.
Deputy AI lets managers create and copy schedules, fill open shifts, find replacements and publish rotas by chat or voice. It checks availability, approved leave, training and your scheduling rules, and shows a summary first: nothing is published without your confirmation.
ToolRotas and staff costsEPOS and sales insightUK available
Fill the rota within your wage budget
Deputy's auto-scheduling fills empty shifts using the priorities you pick, such as lowest cost or an even spread of hours, and takes staff availability and training into account. With demand forecasting connected to your till, it can plan staff against expected sales.
ToolStock and orderingEPOS and sales insightUK available
Ask an AI assistant in your online shop about pricing, stock and weekly sales
Sidekick is Shopify's AI assistant, built into every Shopify store. Shopify's UK page shows the kind of requests it handles: analyse your pricing, give you a weekly sales summary, warn you before you run out of stock, write product descriptions and plan email campaigns.
Let an AI front desk answer calls and book appointments
Fresha launched AI Concierge for salons, spas, barbers and clinics. It answers incoming calls and messages, works out what the client wants and handles bookings, rescheduling, cancellations and questions using your live Fresha calendar.
LaunchEPOS and sales insightRotas and staff costsStock and orderingUK available
Hospitality data you can question with the AI chat tool you already use
Tenzo, a UK analytics platform for restaurants and hospitality, launched an AI Connector in August 2026. It pulls live sales, labour and stock data from different systems into one place, so managers can ask ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or similar tools questions like which hours are most profitable, or get an end-of-day summary, without building reports.
Find software that works with Making Tax Digital for Income Tax
HMRC's software finder asks about your income sources and what you need the software to do, then lists products that work with Making Tax Digital for Income Tax. HMRC does not recommend any one product. Read our free explainer for the dates and thresholds.
Summaries are written by an AI agent from public sources and checked against the linked page on the date shown. Vendor claims are the vendor’s own. Spotted something out of date? Use “Report a correction” on any entry. We haven’t tested these tools, a listing isn’t a recommendation, and ads never change which entries appear or how they’re described. Nothing here is regulated financial advice.
Suggest an entry
Seen an AI tool doing real work for shop?
We’d love to see it. Send us the link and we’ll check it against its source before it goes in.