Snapchat Unveils AI Tools for Advanced Augmented Reality

On Tuesday, Snapchat owner Snap (SNAP.N) introduced its latest generative AI technology, enhancing phone camera special effects for a more realistic user experience, in an effort to outpace social media competitors

Snap has been a trailblazer in augmented reality (AR), which involves imposing computer-generated effects onto photographs or recordings of the real world.

The company is wagering that developing more sophisticated and whimsical special effects, known as “lenses,” will attract new users and advertisers to Snapchat even though it is significantly smaller than its competitors, such as Meta (META.O).

Snap announced that AR developers can now develop AI-powered lenses, which Snapchat users can incorporate into their content.

Snap, headquartered in Santa Monica, California, has also introduced an enhanced version of its developer program, Lens Studio.

This program enables artists and developers to develop augmented reality features for Snapchat and other websites and applications.

Bobby Murphy, Snap’s chief technology officer, stated that the improved Lens Studio would reduce the time required to create AR effects from weeks to hours and produce more intricate work.

“What’s fun for us is that these tools both stretch the creative space in which people can work, but they’re also easy to use, so newcomers can build something unique very quickly,” Murphy stated in a telephone interview.

A new suite of generative AI tools, including an AI assistant that can assist developers in the event of a query, is now included in Lens Studio.

Artists can generate a three-dimensional image for their AR lens by typing a prompt into an additional tool, eliminating the necessity of creating a 3D model from inception.

Simple effects, such as applying a hat to a person’s head in a video, were the sole capabilities of earlier iterations of AR technology.

Murphy stated that Snap’s innovations will now enable AR developers to develop more realistic lenses, such as hats that smoothly adjust to the illumination in the video and move in tandem with the wearer’s head.

Murphy also mentioned that Snap has plans to develop full-body AR experiences, rather than just facial ones, such as the generation of a new costume, which is currently exceedingly challenging to produce.