When I was invited to join the Agilysys Customer Advisory Board (CAB), the CEO opened with a line that stuck with me:
“Modernizing Agilysys has been like rebuilding an airplane mid-flight.”
And after spending two days with their full leadership team, engineers, product owners, and some of the biggest operators in the world, I can confirm that metaphor wasn’t hyperbole. It was a challenge, delivered with humility and backed by action. They are effectively rebuilding the plane while flying it and inviting us into the cockpit. That’s just the pace of change we face with technological advancements, creating new and unique opportunities that just weren’t possible a few years ago.
TouchPoint is honored to join the Agilysys CAB, a select group of industry leaders shaping the future of hospitality and foodservice technology. The board represents many of the most iconic operators across hotels, resorts, gaming, sports, universities, senior living and now, for the first time, healthcare retail.
For TouchPoint, this is not just a seat at the table. It is a signal that healthcare retail is now recognized as a critical part of the broader hospitality technology ecosystem.
Why This Matters
I was struck by the pace of the meeting. Novel concepts were being actively built and vetted. The pace of innovation, the willingness to rethink the fundamentals, and the obsession with customer use cases felt much closer to a startup than a publicly traded company with more than 60-years of history and a presence across 6,400 properties. And that’s exactly why TouchPoint is here.
Being invited into this group at this moment, when the company is accelerating faster than at any point in the last decade, signals that TouchPoint’s perspective is both needed and influential.
Throughout the CAB meeting, one theme was clear. Agilysys wants real operational input, not theoretical feedback.
TouchPoint brings practical experience from healthcare retail environments that require simplicity, speed, and reliability. We represent:
- Healthcare retail complexity that mirrors some of the toughest environments in hospitality
- Field-driven workflows that require systems to reduce friction and remove steps
- A frontline-first perspective often missing in technology design
- Deep experience operationalizing AI in live environments rather than evaluating it in pilot form
- What makes our team’s jobs easier, faster, safer, or more intuitive
- What reduces steps or removes cost without compromising experience
This perspective aligns strongly with Agilysys’ renewed focus on ease of use, implementation efficiency, and modern user experiences.
Where we are Headed
This is not about software. It is about momentum.
Agilysys is investing heavily in applied AI, modernizing interfaces, simplifying configuration, strengthening cross-product workflows, enhancing personalization and consumer insights, expanding analytics, and building solutions that operate at enterprise scale. These investments align directly with us. We are rapidly modernizing our retail environments to improve guest flow and experience, reduce friction, lower operating expenses, and enable expanded services across our hospitals.
As the only healthcare operator on the board, TouchPoint will provide feedback about Agilysys’s advancements to ensure they are designed with real-world operations in mind. Our role is to make certain that innovation is effectively implemented in the field, where technology must be practical, durable, and easy for associates to adopt. This partnership enables us to influence product decisions before they reach the market, guarantee that healthcare retail is represented in global hospitality technology innovation, pilot modern solutions that enhance the guest experience, and integrate frontline realities into system design.
It also continues to cement TouchPoint as a leader in applied AI for frontline operations. We are co-creating AI-enabled workflows that will shape the next decade of point of sale, guest experience, and retail automation. We often talk about operationalizing innovation rather than admiring it. This board seat positions us within the laboratory where innovation is developed, ensuring that TouchPoint remains several steps ahead of the market.
Why TouchPoint Was Asked to Join
TouchPoint is viewed as a leader in operational transformation and applied AI, particularly in environments where consistency, speed, and labor efficiency are mission-critical. Our work with digital platforms, automation, and modernized retail operations has positioned us as a company that operationalizes innovation rather than simply adopting it.
Closing Thought
The most energizing takeaway from the CAB meeting was building innovation at scale with people who think as we do:
- Experiences that reduce steps.
- Experiences that eliminate friction.
- Experiences that empower the frontline.
- Experiences that make operations simpler, not heavier.
That is the type of innovation TouchPoint stands for. And now, we are helping shape it.