When I spoke with Gina Armada, CEO of MHC, our conversation kept returning to one word: agility.
Not the buzzword kind. The kind that determines whether a company can adapt fast enough to meet the expectations of its customers and its regulators.
“Agility is critical. Change is coming at all of us so fast… it’s absolutely paramount that organizations can change quickly and adapt those communications.” — Gina Armada
For years, customer communications lived in the back office as batch jobs, print queues, PDFs. It worked when change came slowly. But not now.
Today, agility has become a competitive advantage.
Agility Over Inertia
Many organizations still struggle to make simple updates. Gina told me about a financial services firm where changing one customer letter took four weeks. Everyone accepted that as normal a mindset she challenges directly.
“Is it okay for your business to be waiting four weeks?”
Waiting weeks to make a simple change in a digital world isn’t just inefficient it’s a form of brand neglect. Customers notice delays as a poor experience. Regulators notice errors. Competitors notice opportunity.
Your customer communication platform shouldn’t be holding your company back, it should empower the organization and everyone in it.
Empowering the People Closest to the Customer
MHC’s response has been to build a platform that hands control back to the business. Through low-code and no-code tools, line-of-business teams can update messaging, test new workflows, or refine language without submitting IT tickets or waiting for developers.
“We need to enable smart, analytical business users to make change,” Gina said. “They know the business processes. They know their audiences.”
That shift from IT-owned systems to business-owned outcomes changes everything. It’s not just about speed. It’s about building a culture where teams can act on insight immediately, where innovation stops being another project, and starts to become the norm.
Automation vs. AI - The Real Difference
When we got to the topic of AI, Gina didn’t blur the lines.
“Automation is logic,” she said. “It’s rules-based. It’s if-this-then-that. AI is different. It’s decisioning intelligence.”
In other words, automation follows the map. AI redraws it.
MHC has been in the automation business for more than two decades, long before “AI-powered” became the default tagline. Automation handles the repeatable, predictable work: it enforces rules, ensures compliance, and eliminates manual errors. AI, on the other hand, brings the ability to make contextual decisions to see patterns, recommend actions, and learn from outcomes.
Gina’s point: the real future isn’t AI replacing automation, it’s AI amplifying it. The organizations that get this right will use AI to supercharge human decision-making, not to sidestep it.
And that’s where she sees the next big shift a new kind of role inside companies: “agent managers” who train and supervise AI systems much like you’d coach an employee. People who understand both the business and the logic behind automation will become essential to scaling responsibly.
“AI isn’t a silver bullet,” she said. “But for those who modernize and know how to use it, it’s a force multiplier.”
Andy’s Take
What struck me most in this conversation wasn’t the technology it was the mindset of Gina and MHC team.
So many companies talk about “digital transformation,” but what they’re really doing is digitizing old habits. Agility isn’t about the tools. It’s about trusting the people closest to the customer to make changes, in a controlled and regulated way, without having to ask permission, beg for budgets and get on the IT roadmap.
What MHC is doing different. They’re saying: if you understand the customer and their needs, you should have the power to act.
Looking Ahead
MHC will be on the floor at Printing United in Orlando, showing what that next generation of agility in customer communicaitons looks like in action, with automation that empowers business users and keeps organizations ahead of change. Check them out at Booth #1211
