An application programming interface (API) for enabling, a calling application to instruct a speech processing system to perform operations including online audio acquisition and algorithmic speech processing operations includes acquisition interface means for enabling the calling application to instruct the speech processing system to acquire online audio from an external communication channel, and processing interface means for enabling the calling application to instruct the speech processing system to perform at least one of the algorithmic speech processing operations on said acquired audio. The acquisition interface means and the processing interface means include object-oriented classes. The external communication channel is selected from a group including a particular time slot of a telephone trunk, a particular telephone extension and an audio file of a remote audio storage.