Video conferencing is now a standard part of how businesses, schools and healthcare providers operate, and the market is still growing. What's changing fastest is the technology inside the call, and the security questions around it. This guide covers the size of the market in 2026, the trends reshaping the technology, and the new security reality every organiser now has to plan for.
Table of contents
- The video conferencing market in 2026
- The trends shaping video conferencing
- What to watch next: three predictions
- Is Zoom still relevant? Platform consolidation
- Your video conferencing platform matters
- Frequently asked questions
The video conferencing market in 2026
Video conferencing is a large, steadily growing market, and the exact figure depends on what you count. Software-led estimates put it smaller; estimates that add hardware and managed services put it roughly twice the size. Both agree it keeps growing.
| Source (scope) |
2026 market size |
Growth |
Forecast |
| Precedence Research (software-led) |
~$11.2 billion |
about 12% a year |
~$31 billion by 2035 |
| Fortune Business Insights (hardware, software and services) |
~$20.3 billion |
about 7.9% a year |
~$37.5 billion by 2034 |
The growth now comes from where the spending goes next. Gartner's mid-2026 outlook expects only low single-digit growth in unified communications over the next two years as the core market saturates, with the gains concentrated in AI and video capability while seat growth flattens (Gartner). In practice the money is moving towards what a call can do: AI features, embedded video inside other products, and the hardware and security that hybrid work needs. Healthcare remains one of the faster-growing segments, as remote consultations and virtual therapy move from pilot to standard practice.
The trends shaping video conferencing
1. AI moves from passive assistant to active teammate
For the past two years, AI in video conferencing mostly meant post-meeting summaries and transcription. Useful, but passive. In 2026 the shift is towards agentic AI: assistants that act on a meeting, not just record it. That means scheduling the follow-up based on what was agreed, updating a project board with action items as they are decided, and pulling in the right document without being asked.
The appetite is there: in Metrigy's 'AI for Business Success: 2025-26' study of more than 1,100 organisations, 42 per cent planned to roll out AI meeting assistants within a year. Market Research Future values the AI meeting-assistant market at around $3.5 billion in 2025, growing fast. The advantage is moving to platforms that turn meeting outcomes into tracked tasks and CRM updates, beyond simple recordings.
2. Deepfakes make 'is this person real?' a security question
This is the trend that changes the threat model. As AI avatars get better, you can no longer assume the face on a call is who it claims to be. In 2024, a finance worker at the engineering firm Arup joined a video call with what looked like the company's CFO and colleagues, all of them AI-generated deepfakes, and was tricked into making 15 transfers worth about US$25.6 million. Hong Kong police called it the first local case using several deepfakes in a single call.
It was not a one-off. Deloitte has projected that generative-AI-enabled fraud could reach tens of billions of dollars in losses by 2027. The practical responses are now appearing: platforms adding deepfake detection and identity verification for live video, a kind of verified badge for a face on a call, and a simple process rule that no live video request for money or access is actioned without confirmation on a second channel.
Underneath that, the basics still matter. Encryption in transit and at rest, strong authentication and clear data handling are baseline expectations now, no longer premium extras. Digital Samba, for example, offers optional end-to-end encryption for confidential calls alongside European data hosting, which suits organisations where data residency is a hard requirement.
3. Spatial, 3D and holographic calls arrive (at the high end)
The most futuristic trend is becoming real. Light-field systems such as Google Beam and HP's Dimension, the commercial successors to Project Starline, render a person in 3D without a headset, so eye contact and depth feel close to in-person. At roughly the price of a high-end meeting room, these are boardroom and specialist tools for now, with everyday adoption further off. VR and AR headsets add a second track, putting remote participants in a shared virtual room. Both point the same way: closing the presence gap between remote and in-person.
4. The media stack gets quietly smarter
Less flashy but more widely felt are the AI improvements to the call itself. Machine-learning codecs and super-resolution reconstruct a clean stream on poor connections; AI noise suppression strips out background sound in real time; and smart cameras auto-frame and track whoever is speaking in a meeting room, so remote participants get a fair view. In hybrid rooms, AV-over-IP is replacing fixed cabling with standard network switches, which makes rooms easier to scale and reconfigure.
5. Collaboration merges into the call
The line between a video call and a workspace is blurring. Real-time document editing, a shared whiteboard, task assignment and file sharing during a call are becoming standard features of the call itself. The point is to cut the number of tools people switch between, so the gap between a decision and the action that follows it shrinks. For hybrid teams, that is where things stop falling through the cracks.
6. Embeddable, industry-specific video keeps growing
The fastest-growing part of the market is embeddable video: APIs and SDKs that let a company add calling to its own product, whether that is a telehealth app, an e-learning platform, a support portal or a SaaS tool. People would rather stay where they already are than switch to a separate video app, so a patient joins a consultation from the hospital portal and a student joins class from the learning platform.
That demand also drives industry-specific features over one-size-fits-all: breakout rooms and engagement tools for education, consent workflows and electronic health record (EHR) integration for healthcare, meeting intelligence feeding the CRM for sales. For teams building this in, the criteria that matter in 2026 are low latency, reliable data privacy, GDPR compliance, customisation and clear documentation.
7. Zero-friction joining, and the limits of more meetings
Joining a call should be one click. Browser-based access with no downloads, one-click links and automatic device setup are now the baseline, especially for webinars, client calls and patient consultations where the person joining has never used the platform before. At the same time, the counter-trend is real: with meeting fatigue widely reported, the goal is fewer, better calls, which is part of why asynchronous updates and automated summaries keep gaining ground.
What to watch next: three predictions for 2026 and 2027
Most trend lists stop at the technology. These are the three shifts we expect to matter most for the people actually running calls, and where each one is likely to land first.
1. The real AI contest moves to consent
AI note-takers and assistants are now a default presence on business calls, and some platforms are going further: Microsoft's Copilot Call Delegation, in preview in 2026, can answer and screen incoming Teams phone calls on your behalf (UC Today). The harder question in 2026 is who agreed to let the AI listen. In August 2026 a US federal court let wiretap and privacy claims against the note-taker Otter.ai proceed, and rejected the idea that a visible bot in the attendee list counts as consent (UC Today); similar cases against other assistants are pending. With around a dozen US states requiring every participant's consent to record, recording disclosure and consent controls are becoming a real buying criterion.
2. 'Prove you're human' becomes a call feature, slowly
The deepfake fraud that hit Arup is pushing platforms towards verifying that a face on a call is genuinely who it claims to be. Two defences are forming: live deepfake detection, and content provenance, where a cryptographic signature travels with the video so a viewer can check where it came from. The C2PA Content Credentials standard has added support for live and streamed video, and the first consumer devices have begun attaching these credentials at the point of capture (C2PA). The honest limit is that this works best for broadcast and recorded clips today, while two-way interactive calls are the harder case still being solved. Expect 'verified participant' signals on high-stakes calls to arrive before full call-level provenance does.
3. Regulation starts switching features off, not just adding them
For the first time, the roadmap includes AI features that get disabled by geography. Under the EU AI Act, inferring emotions from employees or students has been prohibited since February 2025, with penalties reaching tens of millions of euros, and wider transparency duties for AI systems follow during 2026. That is already pushing emotion-analysis and some biometric features out of EU workplace calls. If you're building AI into video for a European audience, it pays to map what is allowed before you ship: our guide to what is illegal in Europe before you add AI to video walks through the lines that matter.
Is Zoom still relevant? Platform consolidation
A fair question in 2026, given how much has changed. The short answer is yes, but it is now one option among many. Two forces are pulling in opposite directions. Businesses are consolidating standalone tools into all-in-one suites to cut cost and tool-switching, which favours the big platforms bundled with productivity software. At the same time, organisations with specific needs, such as data residency, industry workflows or embedding video into their own product, are choosing specialist platforms over a general one. The result is less a single winner than a split: suites for general internal use, and specialist or embeddable providers where privacy, compliance or product fit decide it.
Your video conferencing platform matters
The trends point one way: video conferencing is becoming more intelligent, more integrated and more privacy-conscious. Choosing a platform shapes how your team communicates, how customers experience your product, and how your data is handled, well beyond the technology itself.
Digital Samba offers both a standalone video platform and an embeddable API and SDK for developers. Application and session data stays in the EU and EEA, encrypted in transit and at rest, with optional end-to-end encryption for confidential calls. Features include HD video, AI captions, screen sharing, cloud recording, breakout rooms and an interactive whiteboard.
Request a demo to see how it fits your use case, or create a free account to try it yourself.
Frequently asked questions
How big is the video conferencing market in 2026?
It depends on scope. Software-led estimates put it at around $11.2 billion in 2026, growing about 12 per cent a year (Precedence Research); estimates that also count hardware and services put it near $20.3 billion (Fortune Business Insights). Both forecast steady growth into the 2030s.
Is Zoom still relevant in 2026?
Yes, though it's now one option among many rather than the default. Buyers are splitting between all-in-one suites bundled with productivity software and specialist or embeddable platforms chosen for data residency, compliance or product fit. The bigger change in 2026 is the AI and security layered on top, which increasingly decides which platform wins.
What is the future of video conferencing?
The near-term direction is AI that acts on meetings rather than only recording them, stronger defences against deepfakes and impersonation, and tighter rules on what AI may do on a call, especially in the EU. Expect consent and recording controls, identity verification and embedded video inside other products to weigh more heavily than raw video quality.
What is the latest video conferencing technology?
Agentic AI meeting assistants that act on outcomes, deepfake detection and identity verification, spatial and 3D calls (Google Beam, HP Dimension), smarter media (ML codecs, super-resolution, AI noise suppression) and embeddable video APIs.
What is the biggest security risk on video calls now?
AI deepfakes impersonating real people on live calls. The 2024 Arup case, where deepfaked executives led to about US$25.6 million in transfers, is the clearest example. The practical defence is to verify any high-stakes request on a second channel and use a platform with strong encryption and data controls.
