Pipecat is a framework that manages voice and video streams alongside speech-to-text, large language model and text-to-speech components in a pipeline, with the goal of reducing latency. Daily provides hosted infrastructure for voice and video calls of any kind. According to PitchBook data cited by TechCrunch, Daily has raised more than $62 million from investors including Tiger Global and Highfield Capital.
Daily co-founder Kwindla Kramer said the team favored Deepgram because CEO Scott Stephenson committed to keeping Pipecat open source and vendor-neutral, and because the two engineering cultures matched. Stephenson said Deepgram wants developers to pick the best models for their use case, including models from other providers.
Deepgram is also launching the Real-Time Context Standard (RCS), an open protocol for voice agents that it co-developed with the Pipecat team. The protocol defines metadata such as audio context, instructions for how a language model should use those signals, and guidance on how a response should sound.
Why it matters if you build agents
Developers building voice agents can keep using Pipecat as an open-source framework, with the stated plan that it remains vendor-neutral and can plug in different speech and language models.
Teams that adopt the new RCS protocol should check how it fits their existing voice pipelines, since it is newly launched.
Because the deal terms were not disclosed, developers relying on Daily's hosted calling infrastructure should watch for changes to pricing or service under the new owner.
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