Enterprise voice AI tools provider Deepgram acquires Daily, which has raised $62M+ and develops open-source voice AI framework Pipecat, for an undisclosed sum

Your voice agent development tools get more real-time capabilities for free, integrated into the Pipecat framework.

Deepgram, a provider of enterprise voice AI tools, has acquired Daily, the developer of the open-source voice AI framework Pipecat. The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Daily had previously raised over $62 million from investors including Tiger Global and Nat Friedman. Deepgram, which recently achieved unicorn status with a $130 million Series C round, aims to enhance its voice AI infrastructure with this acquisition. Both companies are alumni of the Y Combinator 2016 batch. The acquisition is expected to allow Deepgram to gain deeper insights into real-time voice and video infrastructure, while Pipecat will remain open source. Deepgram also launched the Real-Time Context Standard (RCS) protocol, co-developed with the Pipecat team, to standardize metadata for voice agents.

The acquisition of Daily by Deepgram signals a consolidation trend within the competitive voice AI sector, where companies are seeking to strengthen their market positions through strategic partnerships and M&A. By integrating Daily's Pipecat framework, Deepgram aims to bolster its real-time voice and video infrastructure, enhancing its capabilities in areas like speech-to-text, LLMs, and text-to-speech, while also expanding into broader AI-native software development. The commitment to keeping Pipecat open source suggests a strategy to foster a wider ecosystem, allowing developers to leverage best-in-class models from various providers, which could in turn drive innovation and adoption of Deepgram's own offerings.

The launch of the Real-Time Context Standard (RCS) protocol, co-developed with Daily, indicates a move towards standardization in voice agent development. This protocol aims to define crucial metadata, such as contextual audio cues like whispers, and provide instructions for language models and response generation. By establishing such standards, Deepgram and the Pipecat team are facilitating more expressive and end-to-end speech systems, potentially lowering the barrier to entry for developers and enabling more sophisticated AI-driven voice applications across various industries.