IQ's read on demand

What it is

The two hero gauges at the top of Forecasting, Demand outlook and Your capacity, each give you one number and one status word. They do not talk to each other. IQ's read on demand is the paragraph directly underneath both of them that does: it takes what the demand gauge says, what the capacity gauge says, the single worst thing that would break if more work landed, and any separate margin-pressure warning, and reads it back to you as one plain, connected sentence-by-sentence take, the way a fractional COO would summarize the two charts in front of them before telling you what to do next.

It is not a chart, not a score, and not clickable. It is the bridge: the gauges are the data, this paragraph is the meaning, and the Take Action row right below it is where that meaning turns into something you can do.

Visually, this card carries IQ's identity: a small circular mark and an uppercase copper label, "IQ's read on demand," sitting on its own lifted, accent-tinted glass surface, a sibling to the two gauge cards above it, not a box nested inside another box. That treatment is deliberate and specific to this one placement. The same underlying card component renders elsewhere on the platform, on Processes and inside the decision workspace, but there it drops the avatar and the lifted surface and simply flows flat as an eyebrow plus a paragraph on the existing surface. Forecasting is the one page where this read stands as its own first-class element, because it sits at the page's top level rather than inside an already-framed deck.

Where to find it

Open Forecasting from the sidebar at iq.verinode.ai/forecasting. If you have not switched Forecasting on yet, the route shows a "Switch on Forecasting" panel instead of the live page; see Forecasting: past, present, and future demand for exactly what that looks like and how to turn it on.

Once the page is live, this card is the second thing on it, directly below the Demand outlook and Your capacity gauges and above a hairline divider that leads into the Season strip. It flows straight into the Take Action row further down the page with nothing else in between.

The five things it can say, in order

The paragraph is always built in the same fixed order. Depending on what data is available, some parts are included and some are left out, but the order never changes and the closing line never changes.

1. 1The demand read. One plain sentence stating the level shown on the Demand outlook gauge: "Demand is pointing up over the next 90 days." when the gauge reads Busier, "Demand is cooling over the next 90 days." when it reads Cooling, or "Demand looks steady over the next 90 days." when it reads Steady. This always appears, even with no industry data connected yet, in which case the gauge itself defaults to a neutral Steady read and the sentence follows suit.
2. 2Your capacity against that read. Only appears once headroom has actually been computed (the same headroom percentage shown on the Your capacity gauge). Three versions, and only one shows at a time:
3. 3- If your capacity is not enough for what the current outlook calls for: "You are running at about [N]% headroom, so you can't fully take on a busier season without adding capacity first." This line uses the phrase "busier season" every time it appears, even on a Steady or Cooling read, because a season at any level still needs some minimum spare capacity, just less of it than a genuinely busier one would.
4. 4- If the outlook reads Busier and your capacity is enough: "You have about [N]% headroom, enough to take on the extra work if you plan for it."
5. 5- Otherwise (Steady or Cooling reads with sufficient headroom): "You have about [N]% capacity headroom right now."
6. 6If headroom has not been computed yet (no capacity or equipment data assembled), this sentence is skipped entirely rather than showing a placeholder.
7. 7The first thing that would break. Only appears when there is an active binding constraint. One sentence names it and explains it in the same breath: "The first thing that would break if you take on more work: [constraint label]. [constraint note]." For example, "The first thing that would break if you take on more work: 2 service lines are one-deep. One-deep lines (turnover/PTO risk): water mitigation, contents." When nothing is currently constrained, this sentence is left out completely, it is never replaced with a "no constraint" line inside this paragraph (that reassurance lives on the capacity gauge itself, not here).
8. 8Margin pressure, kept separate from volume. Only appears when an input-cost or wage indicator is running meaningfully hot, in its own sentence, word for word what the Demand outlook's margin-pressure note says (for example, "Construction input costs are running 6.1%. More work at today's input costs means watching margin, not just volume."). This is deliberately never blended into the demand-read sentence: more work at thin margins is a different call than more work at healthy margins, so the two are never allowed to cancel each other out inside one sentence.
9. 9The close, always the same. "Model a plan below to see how far you can push, then turn it into a decision." This line never varies and never disappears. It is the explicit handoff from the read to the scenario modeler tile that leads the Take Action row underneath it.

Worked examples

Busier season, enough room to take it: "Demand is pointing up over the next 90 days. You have about 62% headroom, enough to take on the extra work if you plan for it. Model a plan below to see how far you can push, then turn it into a decision."

Busier season, capacity already tight, with a constraint: "Demand is pointing up over the next 90 days. You are running at about 22% headroom, so you can't fully take on a busier season without adding capacity first. The first thing that would break if you take on more work: 2 service lines are one-deep. One-deep lines (turnover/PTO risk): water mitigation, contents. Model a plan below to see how far you can push, then turn it into a decision."

Steady season, plenty of room, no constraint: "Demand looks steady over the next 90 days. You have about 68% capacity headroom right now. Model a plan below to see how far you can push, then turn it into a decision."

Cooling season with margin pressure: "Demand is cooling over the next 90 days. You have about 55% capacity headroom right now. Construction input costs are running 6.1%. More work at today's input costs means watching margin, not just volume. Model a plan below to see how far you can push, then turn it into a decision."

No industry data connected yet, no operating data assembled: "Demand looks steady over the next 90 days. Model a plan below to see how far you can push, then turn it into a decision." This is the shortest the paragraph ever gets, sentences 2 through 4 all drop out, but the card never goes blank. Once industry indicators connect for your region and your operating picture assembles (crew coverage, equipment adequacy, cash, safety), the capacity and constraint sentences fill in on their own.

How this differs from the gauges above it

The Demand outlook and Your capacity gauges are clickable: each opens a detail overlay with the full driver table, the rationale sentence, and the complete list of constraints. This card is not clickable and carries no drill-down of its own on purpose, it is the connective read, not another data surface to dig into. If a line here makes you want the evidence behind it, that is what the gauges and their overlays are for; see The demand outlook: busier, steady, or cooling and the capacity section of Forecasting: past, present, and future demand for the full mechanics behind the headroom percentage and the binding-constraint list this paragraph draws its sentences from.

It is also worth knowing this paragraph is not a fresh AI generation each time you load the page. It is assembled deterministically, by plain logic, from the same demand outlook and operating-model facts the two gauges already show. That means it renders instantly, reads exactly the same way twice for the same underlying numbers, and there is no separate "regenerate" step, refresh the page after your data changes and the read updates with it.

How to use it

Read this paragraph first. It is written to be the one thing you need if you only have thirty seconds: what demand is doing, whether you can handle it, what breaks first if you can't, and whether margin is a separate worry on top of volume. If you want to check the reasoning, click either gauge above it. If you are ready to act on it, the very next thing on the page is the Take Action row, and its first tile, Model a growth plan, is the direct continuation of this paragraph's closing line.

Best-practice example

Say the Demand outlook gauge reads Busier, momentum +38, driven by claims frequency rising and severe storm losses climbing. Your capacity gauge reads 34% headroom, At capacity for the outlook, with "2 service lines are one-deep" as the binding constraint. IQ's read on demand ties the two together in one paragraph: demand is pointing up, you have some room but not enough to take the whole season without adding capacity first, and the one-deep coverage is what would actually break first if the storms land as forecast. Instead of guessing at a fix, the next line tells you exactly what to do with that: model a plan below. Open the scenario modeler, add crew against the outlook's own demand adjustment, and have IQ pressure-test it before the season arrives rather than after.

Related help articles

• Forecasting: past, present, and future demand
• The demand outlook: busier, steady, or cooling
• Understanding your margin
• The decision workspace
• Acting on decisions
• The feed
• Benchmarks overview
• How benchmarks work

Data sources