Jeff Pulver on vCon and the Birth of the AI Communications Industry, Podcast

Recorded live at Cloud Connections, Doug Green, Publisher of Technology Reseller News, sat down with Jeff Pulver, CEO (Chief Evangelist Officer) of the vCon Foundation, to discuss why vCon represents a foundational shift at the intersection of artificial intelligence and communications.

Pulver describes the conversations at Cloud Connections as a “ground zero” moment—one where a new industry is beginning to take shape. Drawing a parallel to the early days of VoIP and the first VON conferences in the 1990s, he argues that vCon is enabling a similar inflection point, this time driven by AI. At its core, vCon introduces a standardized way to capture and structure conversations—across voice, video, messaging, email, and more—so they can be securely stored, analyzed, and shared.

According to Pulver, this standardization is transformative for AI. Large language models perform best when fed consistent, structured data, and vCon provides a common format that eliminates the fragmentation caused by proprietary conversation systems. By doing so, vCon enables interoperability and allows organizations to extract meaningful intelligence from conversations regardless of platform or application.

Pulver outlines three pillars defining the emerging AI communications industry: high-definition voice, memory, and trust. High-quality audio improves transcription accuracy for AI analysis. Memory comes from virtualized conversations that preserve context and history. Trust is established through built-in compliance features, including consent tracking, purpose limitation, and the ability to revoke or manage permission—capabilities that are increasingly critical as AI regulations evolve globally.

Reflecting on past regulatory battles during the rise of internet telephony, Pulver notes that compliance pressures are inevitable during periods of disruption. He believes vCon offers a proactive solution by embedding compliance directly into the communications infrastructure, allowing organizations to demonstrate consent and governance rather than retrofitting controls after the fact.

Pulver also highlights the commercial implications. With an open standard now taking shape through the IETF process, he expects 2026 to mark the emergence of a full ecosystem of products, services, and revenue opportunities built on vCon. Service providers, vendors, and entrepreneurs who engage early, he says, will be well positioned to define new offerings that were previously impractical or impossible.

To learn more about vCon and the work of the foundation, visit https://www.pulver.com/vconfoundation.