Medtronic PLC this week gave an early look at its AI-powered compute platform for the operating room. The company said Touch Surgery Aide powers its Touch Surgery Ecosystem.
Touch Surgery is designed to “connect the entire surgical journey,” according to Medtronic. It bridges pre-operative planning and training, intra-operative tele-mentoring and tele-proctoring, and AI-powered post-operative insights. The company said this simplifies workflows and extends access beyond individual operating rooms.
Touch Surgery Aide expands the Touch Surgery ecosystem by enabling multimodal AI-driven support during surgery. This provides surgeons with access to actionable insights during procedures, supports case review, and helps inform continuous improvement in clinical decision-making.
“Real-time AI marks a new frontier for healthcare — it is a fundamental evolution in how surgery is supported, moving from technology that assists the surgeon’s hand to technology that helps teams work smarter, move faster, and deliver greater impact in the moment,” said Jim Peichel, chief technology officer at Medtronic.
Touch Surgery Aide will be shared at the Society of Robotic Surgery (SRS) 2026 Annual Meeting this week in Hollywood, Fla.
Medtronic collaborates with NVIDIA on Touch Surgery Aide #
Touch Surgery Aide incorporates NVIDIA‘s accelerated computing infrastructure. It leverages the company’s Holoscan, CUDA, and TensorRT to deliver AI-powered insights in the moment.
Touch Surgery Aide combines computer vision, multimodal AI, and accelerated inference to process surgical video and procedural context in real time. This enables multiple AI applications to run simultaneously during a live procedure. The applications process and act on surgical data in the moment.
It brings intelligent, increasingly automated support in the OR and is designed to continuously learn and evolve.
What is Medtronic’s first AI application for robotic surgery? #
Instrument Exit Point (IEP) is an AI application that runs on Touch Surgery Aide, for use with the Hugo robotic-assisted surgery (RAS) system. It received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance.
Using computer vision, IEP provides a visual notification when select instruments move beyond the visible field of view during a robotic procedure. As the first real-time AI application to run on Touch Surgery Aide, IEP represents an early step in bringing AI-enabled support into robotic surgery. Medtronic designed the platform to support expansion into laparoscopic surgery over time. Medtronic continues to progress the capabilities of the Hugo RAS system. In December 2025, Hugo received FDA clearance for use in urologic surgical procedures.
In June 2026, Medtronic announced 510(k) submissions to expand the use of the RAS system into general and gynecologic specialties in the U.S. The company added that Hugo has been used in tens of thousands of procedures across more than 35 countries in six continents.
What comes next for Medtronic? #
This is an early step in Medtronic’s broader effort to bring AI into the operating room (OR). Over time, Medtronic expects the platform to support a growing range of real-time AI applications, connect with other Medtronic technologies in the OR, and turn the data from every case into insights for surgical teams and the hospitals they work in.
“Surgery is on the cusp of a generational shift, powered by AI and advanced compute,” said George Murgatroyd, general manager and vice president for digital technologies within the surgical business at Medtronic. “The Touch Surgery ecosystem, powered by Touch Surgery Aide, establishes a platform for a new generation of embedded connectivity, seamlessly integrating advanced capabilities into surgical workflows and reinforcing Medtronic’s commitment to delivering the best possible care, for every patient, anywhere.”