The Headless Holodeck: Joel Varty of Agility CMS on Warp-Speed Demos, AI, and the Next Generation of CMS

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Critic’s Log, Stardate 1115.25: We’ve successfully docked with the Agility CMS space station, leveraging its headless, API-first capabilities to refuel for our latest podcast with CTO Joel Varty – who, according to Mr. Data, is bringing aboard a large volume of “dad jokes” as a weapon against the Borg. I’m wondering if our crew will be safe…

It’s true. Joel Varty is known for running webinars with a side of puns. But he makes up for it with real substance. Having watched him live and on Memorex, I can attest to his witty and engaging performances, where he showcases complex, code-centric features with the deft ease of a seasoned Starfleet commander.

Yes, we’re going to have a lot of Star Trek: The Next Generation (“STNG”) references in this ride-along to our recent episode of “The Critic’s Corner” podcast. I make no apologies for it; as a “Trekkie" myself, this conversation was more like a Vulcan mind meld, and you can bond with it here on Apple Podcasts.  

Joel joined me a few weeks after our Boye & Company CMS Connect conference in Montreal in August, where he gave an inspired talk about AI and the timeline we’re on. He made ample use of STNG as a potent metaphor to frame his interstellar ideas about the “Next Generation” of CMS. 

Joel Varty presenting at the CMS Connect conference in Montreal.

Having Joel in the captain’s chair for this chat was natural. We’ve known each other for years, and I’ve been a fan of his Canadian-based headless content management system. Agility CMS is composable to its core, providing some intuitive and elegant tools like Web Studio, which offers some ultra-cool collaboration features. They've also curated a Marketplace of integrations with tools like ai12z, Shopify, Vercel, and more. 

One of Agility's stated values is “Always be listening,” and they've consistently demonstrated this. Since 2004, Joel has been partnering with CEO Jon Voigt to shape the product around their customers’ needs – and this commitment to intergalactic CX has kept some of them on Agility for decades.  

We cover a lot of “space” in this episode. As AI and agentic strategies transform the landscape, CMS and DXP vendors are exploding with new AI-powered features and capabilities. But in many ways, our AI roadmaps are converging, and it’s not always clear where we’re headed. What does the future of content management look like? What happens to websites in this new quadrant – and how do businesses continue to thrive? 

Joel tackles these questions during the pod, unpacking the AI dilemma with decades of foundational experience. But he also gets personal about his background, how he ended up in CMS, and what he’s learned along the way.

Keep reading for some of the highlights. I’ll be in the engine room, checking the nacelles…

Lessons from a warp-speed demo

At CMS Connect, Joel competed in our “CMS Idol” competition – a fixture at all of our large-scale events. It’s a live demo “pressure cooker,” pitting vendors against one another in a rapid-fire gauntlet. Each participant has six minutes to showcase one uniquely innovative feature, and the audience votes on the winner.  

Having participated before, Joel came prepared and went for broke, delivering a real-time, vibe-coded solution, which he details in the pod. He performed at warp speed, but the delivery was masterful. And this was a tough cohort: as I mentioned during the pod, the judges were fairly tame compared to previous tempests. It was a testament to how impactful all of the demos were. 

Joel Varty presenting during the “CMS Idol” competition.

“What I love about it is, in less than six minutes, I was able to do what I think sometimes a developer might say, ‘Oh, that's going to take me at least a couple of days, or at the very least a few hours to create a component and then model it up into the CMS,” he said.

The enterprising “crew” of moderators and judges crowning Joel Varty after the “CMS Idol” competition. Pictured from left: Janus Boye, Daniel Backhaus, Joyce Peralta, Joel Varty, Matt Garrepy, Mark Demeny.

Joel’s winning approach also focused on making complex solutions accessible, emphasizing the real value that AI-powered CMS tools can deliver not only for developers, but for less technical team members – all of whom are under pressure to deliver.

“I thought it would be compelling for folks who aren't developers, or maybe they're more digital leaders,” he explained, “to see what I think could be a great use case for using a headless CMS.” 

Joel also shared how demos like this are an “art form,” and stressed the importance of taking risks to highlight value. A lot of enterprise software is still sold on trust and relationships, especially with so much riding on its performance – so it’s good to keep the demo muscle strong.

The ‘Headless Holodeck’ and how composable is powering AI

As Joel said during the episode, headless CMS and composable architectures are unlocking the real potential for AI, and having an API is the gateway to equipping a CMS for the future.

“If you have an API attached to your CMS, which every headless CMS does, you're already leveled up for talking to AI,” he said.

True. And there are a lot of choices out there for headless CMSes. I asked Joel how this is all rolls up into the competitive matrix. As he said, the governance, structure, and human insight provide a rich foundation for creating platform differentiation – along with niche markets and vertical applications.

“If someone else were to start creating a headless CMS, it would take them years to catch up,” Joel mused. “You could build things really fast with AI, but you can't understand how humans use software.” 

It would be impossible to discuss AI right now without broaching MCP – Model Context Protocol – and how it’s enabling us to harness AI and agents at scale. In many ways, MCP is acting like the “universal translator” that allowed STNG's characters to instantly communicate with new life and new civilizations on the agentic plane.

As Joel says, we’re not on the holodeck yet with what AI can do, but the benefits are materializing as things like MCP become standards. He emphasized the importance of designing APIs and MCP servers with clear documentation and structure to enable AI to be truly effective.

Exploring the future of websites and digital experiences

Composable stacks and headless CMSes have certainly opened up the omnichannel frontier, but AI is also driving traffic towards the answer engines. With significant declines impacting traditional search – and hence, the rise of GEO and AEO – websites seem to have an uncertain future in an AI-first world.

I asked Joel about this, and he echoed the sentiment. Websites are facing significant whitewater, but he’s very optimistic about their continued role in the experiential pastiche. True brand engagement is about creating unique and memorable experiences, even as technology enables new forms of discovery. As he said, websites might soon share the digital stage with agent-to-agent protocols, but their role as the “keepers of brand” and user experience will endure. 

“At its best, websites are an embodiment of your brand identity and your brand presence online,” Joel posited. “They're like your anchor, right? Like [vinyl] album art. And there's a real value to having that.”

Websites aren't the only thing we're worried about. During his talk, Joel conjured STNG's “Borg” villains as an example of a future we want to avoid. If you're not familiar, the Borg are the quintessential bad guys, a cybernetically-enhanced and highly-advanced race that assimilates worlds into a vanilla, hive-mind existence. As the Borg say when encountering a new species to consume, “Resistance is futile."

In many ways, it's a perfect metaphor for our fears. They represent an autonomous, robotic existence that's devoid of creativity and individuality. As Joel said, it's not the future he wants, and we have an opportunity to use AI to realize something better.

Aligning the planets of theater, sports, and literature

If you’re a fan of STNG, then you already know that Captain Jean-Luc Picard – the leader of the starship Enterprise – is a true renaissance man. He's a brilliant military strategist. An academic with a specialization in xenoarchaeology. A musician with a family vineyard. A diplomat. Heck, he even plays a mean game of Parisses Squares.

Not to put him on too big of an intergalactic pedestal, but Joel is cut from a similar cloth. The journey to becoming a technologist is rarely linear – especially in the CMS vertical. Most of us reached this planet by way of different star charts, and Joel is no exception. He's a scholar with a literary background. A collegiate athlete and coach. A performance artist who has danced and sung on stage. 

Quite a resume for a guy who lives in code and sculpts digital experiences. As he told me, his rural upbringing and well-rounded background shaped his views on leadership and how to deliver exceptional customer service. No doubt this synthesis has also prepared him to be a leader not only at Agility, but within the broader CMS community. 

“I think I learned everything I know about leadership from playing and coaching football,” he said. “Sports took me through a lot of that, and I think I learned a lot about dealing with adversity from growing up on a farm.”

In this snippet from the full episode, Joel "beams up" our spirits with wisdom from “making hay” as a kid, embracing theater (he once played the incredibly challenging role of Harold Hill in "The Music Man"), and playing football in college – and how it all prepared him for navigating the stars. 

As he said, “Who we are is like little iterations of what we've decided and chosen.” Somehow, that's translated into a career at a CMS company where he and his partner have forged a decades-long friendship around pushing the boundaries and still feeling the fire to innovate. It's a real human part of the story, and offers great insight:

Joel also sketched out some of the tenets of effective leadership and meeting talent where they are. He advocated for sharing wisdom openly and centering every conversation on real use cases and goals. He always strives for that, maintaining an openness around ideas and possibilities, and how technology can be used to solve problems.

We also discussed longevity in business. Joel shared why he’s been at Agility for almost 21 years – but more importantly, why customers have stayed just as long. As he said, it comes from building genuine relationships with people and handling change management with a careful hand. It also requires a keen focus on trust, consistent delivery, and a commitment to always being there in times of need.

“Our goal is to be here with [our customers] forever. For as long as you’re in business, we're with you,” he said. “You can't fake that."

The (Final) Frontier: AI

As you might expect from a Star Trek fan, Joel is an intrepid explorer. When you listen to this episode, you’ll get a real sense of that. He’s inimitably curious, abundantly passionate, and brings light and energy to every performance (he is, after all, a thespian). 

As we explore the undiscovered country of AI and the agentic plateaus, Joel provides positive yet pragmatic insight about the future, boldly guiding us to where no CMS has gone before. And while the technology is its own story, he manages to humanize it in a deeply personal way. 

Warning! Nerd moment: As Captain Jean-Luc Picard said in STNG season 1, episode 26: “We work to better ourselves.” That’s the world Joel wants us to discover, and AI can get us there. His advice? Look up, zoom out, and lead with vision and perspective – for your teams, for your customers, and for the industry.

Vision is the keystone. Along with his affection for Star Trek, Joel is a fan of hockey, and brought a bit of that reverence to our conversation by channeling one of the GOATs. It was a peculiar mash-up between sci-fi and sports, but it all seemed to work, as he advocated for skating not to where the puck is – but where it’s going to be. 

“Wayne Gretzky was the greatest of all time because of his vision,” he said. “And I think if we can look at bringing perspective and trust into our roles, but then have vision on top of that... then it's a lot clearer where things are going.”

My conversation with Joel offers not only a roadmap for navigating CMS and AI but also powerful reminders about the importance of vision, trust, and authentic leadership. As the industry continues to evolve, those who keep these values at the core are poised to shape a “Next Generation” that’s not only innovative – but truly human.

Step onto the Holodeck and enjoy this voyage.

“The Critic’s Corner” podcast with Joel Varty

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