Why We Built the Fourth iQ App: Empowering Hospitality Managers with AI
By Why We Built the Fourth iQ App
In hospitality, we ask a lot from managers. They’re the lynchpin of great guest experiences, smooth operations, and strong commercial results. But they’re under relentless pressure — with long hours of juggling scheduling, inventory, compliance, team dynamics, and sales targets. Not to mention service.
At Fourth, we’ve many spent years working closely with restaurant, pub, and hotel operators. We’ve seen first-hand how stretched managers are, and how the necessity to collate information from across multiple sources only exacerbates the challenges of making timely and effective operational decisions.
Often the decisions made are based more on instinct than data…or even worse not made at all. Corrective actions end up being reactive to what has happened, rather than proactive – capturing those potential sales or reducing unnecessary costs while you can.
So, we asked ourselves: What if managers had a digital companion that could do the heavy lifting? — highlighting priorities, prompting actions and surfacing insights, without creating any additional effort.
That’s why we built the Fourth iQ App
Making AI Work for Managers — Not the Other Way Around
The Fourth iQ App is the industry’s first dedicated AI-powered app for hospitality managers. It distils the power of our advanced forecasting, scheduling, inventory, and HR solutions into one intuitive app, available anytime, anywhere on mobile, tablet and desktop.
Here’s what it does:
- Proactive alerts flag issues like labor overspend, missed compliance checks, or stock gaps — before they hit service or margins.
- AI-driven recommendations guide managers to the next best action, helping them act faster and smarter.
- Micro-learning on the job turns every shift into a training opportunity, building confidence and commercial savvy over time.
- Real-time dashboards bring together key KPIs across staffing, sales, and stock — giving managers complete control in the palm of their hand.
In short: it’s about giving managers the clarity, time and confidence to deliver consistent and scalable performance.
Built to drive Hospitality forward
In creating the iQ App, we set out with the purpose of not build yet another dashboard or reporting tool – that ends up just giving managers more work to do to make sense of it. The aim was to deliver an experience that is far more proactive, prescriptive and genuinely makes their lives easier. Whether it’s adjusting a schedule on the fly, reacting to shifting demand shifts, or avoiding wastage, the app is built to keep managers ahead of the curve.
According to a recent Deloitte report on AI in restaurants, over 80% of restaurant executives plan to increase their AI investment in the next year, with real-time operational benefits like inventory management, operations and customer experience top of mind. The Fourth iQ App helps operators operationalize AI — not just experiment with it. And even better, there is minimal effort to get AI in the hands of managers – we do all the heavy lifting.
What’s Next
The scope of Fourth iQ App will continue to expand and evolve as our customers ramp up their usage. There is no limit to the variety of recommendations the app can deliver, and deep observation and collaboration with our customers will shape the direction the iQ App takes.
Over and above that, we are hugely excited for another major Fourth iQ capability coming next year, named iQ360. It gives head office complete visibility across all locations, real-time ROI tracking and optimization capabilities. We are hugely excited for the commercial impact this will have above-store, to compliment the in-store capabilities of the iQ App. More info coming soon!
Check out how Fourth iQ App.
Find out how it can drive the performance of your managers with AI-driven recommended actions and alerts.