AI + Square and Lightspeed for Australian Retailers: Getting More From Your POS

Square and Lightspeed are the two most widely used point-of-sale systems for Australian retailers. Both have added AI features in the last two years: some worth using, some still early. Here’s what’s worth turning on and what you can do beyond the built-in tools.

AI in Square

Square has built AI features across several of its products:

• Square Assistant: an AI chatbot in the Square dashboard that answers questions about your sales data (“What were my busiest hours last week?”), helps configure settings, and provides plain-English insights from your reports.
• Inventory alerts. Square uses historical sales patterns to predict when stock will run low and alerts you before you run out. Available on Square for Retail plans.
• Customer directory insights. Square analyses purchase history to identify your top customers, lapsed customers, and purchase frequency trends. Useful for targeted promotions.
• Square Marketing. AI suggests the best time to send marketing emails based on when your customers typically open their emails, and can generate basic email copy.

AI in Lightspeed

Lightspeed (which acquired Kounta to enter the Australian market) has integrated AI into its retail and restaurant platforms:

• Lightspeed Intelligence. AI-powered analytics that surfaces performance trends, identifies underperforming products, and benchmarks your store against similar businesses in Lightspeed’s network.
• Smart inventory suggestions: recommends reorder quantities based on sales velocity and supplier lead times.
• Customer insights: tracks purchase history and flags customers who haven’t returned in a defined period, enabling targeted re-engagement campaigns.
• Lightspeed Payments analytics. AI analysis of payment data to identify fraud patterns and peak transaction times.

Going further with AI beyond your POS

Your POS data becomes more powerful when you connect it to other tools:

• Export sales data to Google Sheets: then use ChatGPT or Gemini to analyse trends, spot anomalies, and draft reports. “Here’s my monthly sales by category for the last 6 months: what trends do you see and what should I focus on?”
• Connect to Mailchimp or Klaviyo: both integrate with Square and Lightspeed and use AI to segment customers and personalise email campaigns based on purchase history.
• Use Canva AI for promotions: your POS data tells you what’s selling; Canva’s AI tools help you create the promotional materials to push it harder.

What to prioritise

Start with your POS’s built-in reporting and turn on whatever automated alerts are available: low stock, lapsed customers. These are the highest-value, lowest-effort AI features. Then look at connecting your customer data to an email marketing tool for AI-powered campaigns. That’s where the meaningful revenue upside sits for most retailers.

Related: Anthropic Data Confirms: Australian Small Businesses Are Leading the World in AI Adoption | Zeller: The Melbourne Fintech Reinventing Business Banking for Australian SMBs

See also: AI tools for Australian retail businesses and best free AI tools for Australian small business.

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