The rapid onset of the COVID-19 pandemic was a stress test of readiness and resilience for businesses everywhere. The future arrived quickly as companies of every size rapidly shut down and workers headed home in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus, with the sudden actualization of long-anticipated trends in remote work and virtual collaboration occurring within weeks, and, in some cases, days.
When a major health crisis flung us all apart, technology brought us together. Much of that success is the result of embedded video APIs, offering the kind of programmable and customizable live video chats and sessions that are now an essential part of large and small businesses alike, that aren’t just trying to survive, but actively expand their offerings and capabilities.
These video APIs can be flexible and customizable, allowing you to easily embed programmable features, like voice, messaging and video, directly into the apps you’re already using, in a secure and scalable way.
The Vonage Communications Platform, for instance, uses communications APIs to integrate multiple communications channels – video, voice, messaging, chat, email and verification – into websites, mobile apps, and workflows. In the case of the Vonage Video API, programmable video provides embedded, reliable and secure streaming capabilities that off-the-shelf video solutions simply can’t replicate. While the availability of such video conferencing solutions has garnered a lot of attention these past months, without the ability to provide embedded, programmable video functionality, these off-the-shelf solutions don’t address the need most businesses have to power essential services during this public health crisis, including telehealth, distance learning, finance, fitness and so many others.
Virtual Connections Enable New Capabilities
The Covid-19 era has underscored and accelerated the need for secure and privacy-compliant video interactions that enable businesses to provide uninterrupted yet remote delivery of essential services to their customers and clients—reliably and at scale.
Leveraging video APIs, enterprise customers around the world and across all industries, have successfully designed easy-to-use, embedded and privacy-compliant solutions for their end users.
That’s critical for the uncountable billions of people who live a huge portion of their business lives online and on-screen, with no signs of that slowing down. In March, for instance, video minutes streamed over the Vonage platform grew 232 percent from a month earlier.
That could be part of a larger trend. The global market for video conferencing alone, estimated at $14 billion in 2019, is forecast to exceed $50 billion by 2026, according to Global Market Insight.
The potential impact of the ability to provide remote delivery of services (such as telemedicine, e-learning and fitness on demand) on business and society is massive. In fact, use cases in just four areas—healthcare, manufacturing, mobility, and retail—could increase global GDP by up to $2 trillion by 2030, according to research by the McKinsey & Co., a rate accelerated by the increased availability and adoption of 5G networks.
Growth is particularly keen in areas like telehealth, as more insurance providers reimburse for telehealth appointments. A leading US telehealth company for example, added more than 700,000 physicians to its video platform since March, supporting more than 15 million monthly patient visits and 500 million minutes of video sessions. The key to a natural, seamless, and invisible tech experience is the use of programmable API services that seamlessly blend video, voice, messaging, chat, and email services with the solutions businesses - and their customers - are already comfortable using.
Similar things are happening in education. In India, Next Education provides K-12 educational services to more than 12 million students, 240,000 teachers, and 12,000 schools. When the pandemic began, Next Education immediately required one-on-one and one-to-many classroom sessions between teachers and students as well as live lectures, classroom training, and more. “We saw a rapid increase in the need for video solutions — up to 10 million video minutes per day,” said Beas Dev Ralhan, CEO and co-founder of Next Education. Ralhan said that Vonage enabled the company to scale quickly to meet increased video traffic via its Vonage Video API which they could securely embed directly into their existing website and mobile app, ensuring the privacy of their teachers and students, as well as a smooth and uninterrupted educational experience.
These days, online video is king, and that reign will last. Researchers see increasing numbers of organizations utilizing video streaming and collaboration. The pandemic has reshaped how and where we work and video APIs will be a huge part of business success for a very long time.
This story was produced by WIRED Brand Lab for Vonage.
