Ted Plenge, PresidentWebsites could operate separately from kiosks, maps could sit in another system and digital displays could require different management tools. Ted Plenge, president of EyeOn, recognized the gap by looking at the industry from the outside.
“The problem isn’t the lack of good technology. It’s that every provider is solving a similar problem at different times for a different set of centers,” he says. Innovation was happening, he observed, but in isolated pockets.
That observation shaped EyeOn’s approach. Rather than adding another point solution to an already crowded technology environment, the company built a common digital foundation connecting the systems that support the customer experience and the people managing the property.
One Foundation, Many Touchpoints
For shoppers, a center’s website, map, kiosk and digital display are not separate experiences. A visitor might search for a retailer on a phone, check its location on a map, find directions through a kiosk and encounter an offer on a display. The technology may sit in different places, but the customer experiences one destination.
EyeOn’s platform is designed around that reality. It brings website content, retailer information, maps, kiosks, displays, analytics and advertising into a connected environment. A retailer update can flow through the website and kiosk map without requiring separate changes across multiple systems.
The company also built its own mapping capability instead of relying on a third-party provider. That gives center teams greater control as properties change. Retailers move, footprints evolve and tenants come and go, yet the digital representation of the property needs to keep pace.
The same philosophy extends to kiosks. EyeOn manages the hardware, software, monitoring, content and analytics rather than leaving those functions scattered among separate providers. The result is less about adding another technology layer and more about creating a common foundation beneath the experiences a center already provides.
Built for the People Running Centers
Technology only creates value when the people responsible for a property can use it without becoming technology specialists. EyeOn designed its management environment around center teams that may oversee one property or an entire portfolio.
The platform supports self-managed, EyeOn-supported and hybrid service models. A center can handle its own updates, rely on EyeOn for ticket-based support or combine the two. The flexibility reflects a practical reality Plenge saw across the industry: marketing resources are not distributed evenly across portfolios and some properties may not have dedicated marketing managers.
EyeOn therefore builds from what Plenge describes as the “least common denominator.” The objective is to make the system usable across different centers while allowing individual properties to customize their experiences. Portfolio-level management can also reduce the amount of duplicated work required to maintain separate digital environments.
That simplicity becomes more important as the number of connected experiences grows. A center may have websites, kiosks, displays, advertising systems and other digital assets, but the people managing them still need a straightforward way to keep everything current.
Turning Fragmentation into Control
The consequences of fragmented technology become clearer when a center inherits an infrastructure assembled over several years. EyeOn encountered one property with elaborate systems built around stadium-style infrastructure. The setup had cost close to USD 400,000 and had become difficult to manage as staff changed and institutional knowledge was lost.
EyeOn simplified the infrastructure and brought more control into its own software environment. Center staff could manage functions from a phone, including powering systems on or off, changing displays and controlling elements such as a gaming wall.
The company also brought reporting and analytics together across kiosks, websites and advertising. In another large migration, nearly 30 websites were moved to the EyeOn platform in about a month.
The significance of these projects extends beyond technical consolidation. Fragmentation creates a management burden when knowledge, controls and data are spread across different systems. Connecting those pieces can give center teams a clearer view of what they have and greater control over how those assets are used.
Connecting those capabilities can also reduce third-party dependencies while giving centers more ways to use digital assets such as kiosks and displays for advertising and other commercial opportunities. For EyeOn, consolidation therefore has a direct connection to both management simplicity and the value centers can generate from technology already on the property.
Connecting the Physical and Digital Journey
A connected foundation also changes what a center can learn about its visitors. Website activity can show what people search for before arriving, while kiosks can reveal how visitors navigate a property once they are there.
EyeOn captures information from both environments, including kiosk searches, traffic patterns and usage by time. At the portfolio level, those signals can give management groups a broader view of how shoppers interact with their properties.
The kiosk is particularly important because it sits at the intersection of digital information and physical experience. A visitor does not have to think about whether a map, retailer directory or offer comes from a different technology provider. The expectation is simpler: find the information needed at the moment it is needed.
That creates room for more intelligent engagement. EyeOn is rolling out an AI chatbot and uses AI to monitor kiosk health hourly. Plenge says the approach has improved kiosk uptime by about 60 percent. The company also envisions conversational kiosks that can understand a visitor’s request, provide directions, surface offers and send information to a phone through a QR code.
Intelligence Comes After Connection
For EyeOn, AI is not the starting point. The foundation has to exist first.
A fragmented environment makes it harder for intelligence to move across the customer journey because the underlying information is separated. Connecting systems first creates the environment in which AI can become more useful, whether the application is monitoring equipment, interpreting customer behavior or eventually helping visitors navigate a property through conversation.
That progression is important to Plenge’s broader view of the industry. Connect the systems. Make information accessible. Understand how people interact with the environment. Then apply intelligence.
The company’s approach to e-commerce illustrates the same discipline. EyeOn developed Share Rails to support virtual shopping, but retailer demand and the broader technology environment did not yet provide the conditions needed for the model to scale. Legacy retailer platforms, APIs and third-party systems made it difficult to connect thousands of products and retailers.
“The biggest challenge is getting all of those products connected, because you have thousands of products and thousands of retailers,” Plenge says. Rather than force the capability into the platform before the ecosystem was ready, EyeOn stepped back from e-commerce. Plenge believes AI could eventually make the underlying integration and curation more practical.
Building the Backbone for What Comes Next
The timing matters because shopping centers themselves are changing. Older malls are being supplemented or redeveloped with gyms, medical practices, dental services, residential communities and other uses. The result is a destination that serves more purposes and creates more interactions across the day.
That evolution puts greater pressure on the technology beneath the property. A center with retail, dining, entertainment, residential and community uses cannot rely on a collection of disconnected digital systems forever if it wants visitors to experience the destination as one place.
Plenge’s answer is broader than adding features. He argues for consolidation built around an operating model rather than simply combining companies through financial transactions. In his view, the industry needs technology providers that can connect capabilities, reduce unnecessary third-party dependencies and create a more solid foundation for the centers they serve.
His perspective also reflects a broader sense of industry stewardship. Plenge believes retail is ultimately served by every company working within the sector, making the health of the technology ecosystem important beyond any individual provider. For him, progress depends on raising the industry as a whole rather than continuing to solve isolated problems in separate pieces.
EyeOn’s development follows that premise. Its mapping, kiosks, websites, displays, analytics and AI capabilities are individual pieces, but their value comes from how they work together. The company is building toward a model in which the center’s digital assets can function as parts of one connected environment rather than isolated systems.
That is the larger story behind EyeOn. Shopping centers are becoming more complex destinations, yet much of the technology supporting them evolved one problem at a time. Plenge saw the gap as an outsider to the established market and built EyeOn around a different premise: connection before intelligence.
The company’s ambition is not simply to give shopping centers another set of digital tools. It is to provide the digital backbone that allows those tools to work together, giving center teams greater control while making the customer journey more visible across physical and digital touchpoints.
That approach is why EyeOn is recognized as a Top Shopping Center Management and Ecommerce Platform 2026. Its work reflects a broader shift in how shopping centers can approach technology: not as a collection of disconnected products, but as a connected foundation capable of supporting the property, its teams and its visitors as the destination continues to evolve.
