AIQ Introduces Astro, a Revolutionary AI Operating System Built to Turn Retail Intelligence Into Action

DETROIT, Sept. 16, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — AIQ, a connected platform for retail marketing, loyalty, ecommerce and analytics, today announced Astro, its new AI operating system designed to help retailers move from understanding their data to acting on it.

Built natively into the AIQ platform, Astro brings together AI-powered campaign creation, analytics, shared business memory, customer conversations and onboarding in one connected intelligence layer. Rather than introducing another standalone AI tool for teams to learn and manage, Astro works across the AIQ ecosystem using the retailer’s existing customer, transaction, loyalty, marketing and operational data.

“Most AI tools today are built to answer questions. We built Astro to take action,” said Brian Geddes, Chief Revenue Officer at AIQ. “It can understand your data, build the audience, create the campaign, engage customers across channels and measure what happened, all with shared context across the AIQ platform. Instead of asking teams to figure out which tool to use or where to go next, Astro lets them tell AIQ what they want to accomplish and helps them actually do it.”

Built on the data retailers already have

Astro is built on more than seven years of compounding customer behavior and retail data across the AIQ ecosystem, including billions of dollars in transactions across more than 7,000 locations and more than 8 billion messages annually across eight-plus marketing channels. It can also draw from order notifications, loyalty behavior, lab data, consumer interactions and integrations across a retailer’s technology stack.

That foundation is central to how AIQ designed Astro. Instead of treating AI as a separate layer that sits beside a retailer’s technology, Astro operates within the systems and data retailers already use.

“We built Astro around a simple question: what would actually make our customers’ lives easier?” said Nicholas Paschal, Chief Executive Officer at AIQ. “Astro is shared memory across your tech stack. Orders, inventory, loyalty, marketing, and store ops feed one context so teams can pull audiences, write campaigns and templates, run analytics, answer the phone, and handle chat without starting from scratch every time. The years of behavior data in AIQ make that work hard to match. What matters is that Astro uses it, and everything connected to it, while people keep the final call.”

From a prompt to an outcome

At launch, Astro connects five core capabilities across AIQ:

• Astro Prompt allows users to ask questions in plain English and generate audiences, campaign copy, email HTML, workflows, tables and charts within the same thread. A retailer can identify a group of lapsed customers, analyze their behavior and turn the result directly into a win-back campaign ready for review.
• Shared Memory creates a common knowledge layer across Astro. Retailers can teach it brand standards, policies, promotions and location-specific rules once, while orders, inventory, customer and loyalty information sync into the system automatically.
• Voice AI answers store calls, verifies customers, checks orders and live inventory, shares loyalty balances and can transfer callers to employees with context about who is calling and why. Calls become structured data including intent, sentiment and resolution.
• Chat AI handles store, menu and product questions online using the same knowledge available to Voice AI, while turning conversations into trackable tickets for retailer teams.
• AI Onboarding guides new customers from account setup to a working AIQ environment, with persistent progress tracking and the ability to return to incomplete steps.

The capabilities are designed to become more valuable together. Customer behavior, campaign performance, calls and chats create additional context. Shared Memory carries that knowledge across Astro, while Astro Prompt gives teams a way to turn what they learn into their next action.

AI that works with the retailer, not instead of them

Astro is designed around human oversight. Campaigns and other outbound actions require human approval, actions are attributed to the user who initiated them, and retailers can apply rules at the account or individual store level.

That approach allows AI to take on more of the execution behind retail operations while keeping teams responsible for the decisions that reach their customers.

Astro is available now within AIQ. Existing customers can contact their Customer Success Manager to get started. Retailers interested in seeing Astro in action can learn more through AIQ’s announcement, Meet Astro: The AI operating system for AIQ.

About AIQ

AIQ is a connected platform that helps retailers and brands grow through data-powered marketing, loyalty, ecommerce and analytics. Built for regulated industries and beyond, AIQ turns customer data into meaningful engagement that drives measurable revenue.

Contact

Katie Howe
Senior Marketing Manager
katie.howe@aiq.com

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/10215c11-a5e3-453b-b0af-e80d1de96768

A video accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/20bc6ec8-73ca-4c92-aeda-cdaf96d46de2

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