BOSTON, Sept. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Strolid, an 11-year automotive industry leader with 180 employees that has facilitated over 3.2 million customer appointments, today announced the formation of VCONIC Inc., a new venture company commercializing its breakthrough conversational data platform built on the pioneering VCON (Virtual Conversation) standard. The strength of Strolid’s three-year technology development and proven business results attracted Perry Evans, co-founder of Jabber and MapQuest, to join as CEO, and Jeremie Miller, creator of Jabber and XMPP, to serve as strategic advisor.
The venture represents the confidence of battle-tested internet infrastructure pioneers in what Vinnie Micciche and Thomas McCarthy-Howe built at Strolid—technology proven within an 11-year operating business serving the demanding North American franchised automotive market. Their platform delivers transformative business results in automotive customer experience while establishing VCON as an IETF standards-track protocol, creating the foundation for universal industry adoption.
Proven Foundation Attracts Industry Veterans
Strolid chose to use AI to help agents and customers, not to replace them. Through three years of R&D investment, the company developed VCONs to listen to customers at scale—processing millions of real conversations to deliver the best customer experiences. Strolid’s human-centered approach generated millions of automotive appointments, proving the platform’s reliability and scalability in a demanding, high-volume production environment. The commercial validation of this customer-first philosophy, combined with Howe’s vision for the privacy-first VCON standard, provided the compelling case that brought Evans and Miller into the collaboration.
Vinnie Micciche’s strategic vision recognized the universal potential beyond automotive applications, seeing how a platform battle-tested across millions of real customer interactions could unlock the complete voice of the customer for daily optimization across industries. When Evans and Miller evaluated the proven results and VCON architecture, they immediately understood the scale of opportunity for universal adoption.
Strategic Leadership Integration
Evans brings extensive experience scaling communication infrastructure and SaaS platforms, while Miller’s expertise in open standards and ecosystem development aligns perfectly with VCON’s evolution toward industry standard status. Their proven track record with XMPP’s universal adoption provides the blueprint for VCON’s commercial success across enterprise, government, and personal use cases.
Mr. Howe, creator of the VCON ecosystem, joins VCONIC as CTO while maintaining an advisory role at Strolid. He continues driving technical innovation as the standard approaches critical mass adoption. The convergence of mature conversational AI, standardized data formats, and urgent business need for conversational intelligence creates optimal timing for VCON’s emergence as foundational infrastructure for AI data governance and regulatory compliance.
Market Opportunity
The venture launches as conversational AI adoption accelerates across all sectors, with growing recognition of conversational data’s strategic importance. VCON provides the missing standardization layer that enables secure, compliant processing of voice, chat, and video interactions at enterprise scale. VCONIC specifically targets platforms and organizations that require transparent, privacy-preserving AI implementations, ensuring personal data protection remains paramount while delivering powerful conversational insights.
About VCONIC Inc.
VCONIC Inc. commercializes breakthrough conversational data intelligence built on the VCON standard. Emerging from Strolid’s three-year platform development, VCONIC transforms voice, chat, and video interactions into actionable business insights. CEO Perry Evans leads the company with CTO Thomas McCarthy-Howe, creator of the VCON standard, and strategic guidance from Jabber co-founder Jeremie Miller.
About Strolid
Strolid is a leading customer experience provider for the North American franchised automotive industry. Over 11 years of operation, the company’s 180 dedicated employees have facilitated more than 3.2 million customer appointments, backed by over 100 years of collective automotive expertise. Through intensive platform development, Strolid has revolutionized automotive customer engagement with conversational AI while pioneering the VCON standard for broader industry adoption.
