Keep your head on! 

This is the start of a series where we WRITE ABOUT AI, but DO NOT WRITE WITH AI.

As I was flying back from Agentforce World Tour in NY, I got to thinking about the actual value of headless architecture, specifically Headless 360. Really, what is this product’s true value statement? 

If I distill it down, Headless 360 is a wager that the next tranche of enterprise software will be judged more on the quality of the AI stack and less on the quality of the UI wrapped around it.

From this, one prominent thought came to bear. Headless is just a better way of saying UI-agnostic. 

Doesn’t that then beg the question though, how does the UI not matter? 

Users still need an environment to responsively interface with our agents, to see results rendered richly, and to provide inputs through various modes and methods. When did the UI stop mattering?

I mean headless architecture is not by any means new. We’ve had examples of this for decades, with one of the most basic early applications being email opt-out; But the best headless framework is one that gives you a choice of your UI, and even more importantly, your user experience (UX). 

My brain is wired to be associative, so when I think of the term headless I get these images flashing through my mind of either a nameless, headless silhouette of a body, or this awesome and descript image of a flaming headless horseman. 

What’s interesting about that to me is that headless architecture is more like the headless horseman than the entirely headless silhouette. Headless 360 isn’t a technology without a head. In fact, it’s technology that is now smarter than ever before, with its intelligence layer decoupled from its body. The intelligence layer is able to float about - able to scale across agentic networks; And the headless horseman is rich in detail, in its rendering - not some bland silhouette like we are starting to see in some of these quick to market AI tools. 

This is where my answer came to surface. The value of Headless 360 will actually come from our choice of UI/UX. Where will we interface with our AI agents, how will the information we need be rendered through this experience, and will it really be leaps better than hopping into our tailored to fit, full-bodied UI?

We have a point of view on this that I’ll be exploring in the coming weeks. 

In the meantime, stay tuned and keep your head on!