Snap Inc. (NYSE:SNAP) today announced new augmented reality tools and camera experiences for Snapchatters, creators, and businesses. Alongside its partners, Snap is building a camera that transforms how its community interacts with the world around them through access to contextual information and richer augmented reality experiences.
More than 5 billion Snaps are created every day on average, making the Snapchat camera one of the most used in the world. Snapchat opens to the camera, so it’s at the center of how the global Snapchat community communicates with friends, expresses themselves, and learns about the world.
Scan and Camera Shortcuts
Scan enables Snapchatters to search through millions of Lenses by matching what is seen through the camera to the most relevant AR experiences on Snapchat. More than 170 million Snapchatters Scan the world around them every month, surfacing delightful and informative Lenses from creators and partners. Today, Snap is bringing the Scan button to the forefront, placing it on the main Camera screen of Snapchat.
Snap is introducing new categories of intelligence to Scan with its partners. Screenshop gives shopping recommendations from hundreds of brands when Snapchatters Scan a friend’s outfit, and Snapchatters can also select photos from Memories to Scan with Screenshop. Soon, Allrecipes will recommend recipes based on ingredients seen through the Snapchat camera.
Scan not only connects Snapchatters to Lenses seamlessly, but will also offer suggestions for new ways to use the Snapchat camera.
Snap is introducing Camera Shortcuts, which are new combinations of creative tools that make it simple for Snapchatters to creatively capture moments to share with friends. Camera Shortcuts suggest camera modes, Lenses, and soundtracks relevant to what is seen through the Snapchat camera, and begin rolling out today.
Lens Studio
Lens Studio is a powerful, free desktop application that lets any creator, developer, or business combine a range of technical and creative capabilities to build, publish, and promote Lenses. The Lens Studio community has grown to over 200,000 creators, and they’ve made nearly 2 million Lenses.
Today, Snap is updating Lens Studio with advanced tools that empower creators to build even more robust, innovative Lenses across gaming, education, shopping, and more, and refine them over time. Lens Studio now features Connected Lenses, which lets friends interact together in real time, whether located in the same room or across the world. Snap and the LEGO Group have created the first Connected Lens, so starting today, friends can collaboratively build with LEGO bricks on Snapchat.
In addition, Lens Studio now offers 3D Body Mesh, Cloth Simulation, and a Visual Effects Editor, which make AR look and move more realistically than ever before. SnapML now enables creators to import their own custom ML models that analyze and generate audio, so Lenses can respond to sound. Visual classification brings the power of Scan to Lens Studio, allowing creators to build Lenses that understand more than 500 categories of objects. As Lenses become more advanced, new Lens Analytics give creators the information they need to build even more engaging and retentive experiences. Anonymous and aggregated data offer detailed insights to help creators learn from their audiences and build better Lenses, while protecting privacy.
Visit lensstudio.snapchat.com to download and create with Lens Studio.
AR Try-On and Business Solutions
Snap is introducing new AR try-on experiences with fashion partners, bringing Snapchatters together with the businesses they care about through the Snapchat camera. FARFETCH provides an immersive shopping experience using 3D Body Mesh and voice-enabled controls, letting Snapchatters now say what items they’re looking to browse and try on in AR. Prada is tapping into new gesture recognition capabilities that let shoppers signal to the camera when they want to try on another item.
Brands and businesses can drive valuable, scalable solutions through the Snapchat camera. Snap is introducing API-enabled Lenses, allowing businesses to tap into dynamic, automatic ways to feature real-time content in AR. Through Snap’s partnership with Perfect Corp, The Estée Lauder Companies will be among the first to leverage Snap’s AR Shopping platform tools. By integrating their product catalog through Snap’s API in Business Manager, brands like M·A·C Cosmetics can build Lenses from new AR Shopping templates and publish them to Snapchat, based on real-time product inventory.
In addition to API-enabled shopping Lenses, Snap is also working with select partners to bring real-time content into Lenses, allowing Snaps to better capture the moment. Starting today, Major League Baseball brings stats from live games right into Lenses.
Through Public Profiles for Businesses, brands can establish a permanent presence on Snapchat to showcase their Lenses, Highlights, and Stories. Public Profiles also let businesses enable browsing, try-on and buying through Shops, turning Snapchat into a new point of sale.
A new Creator Marketplace connects businesses with creators to build AR experiences, helping businesses elevate their presence on Snapchat by leveraging the expertise of the Lens Creator community.
Businesses and creators can get started at ar.snap.com.
About Snap Inc.
Snap Inc. is a camera company. We believe that reinventing the camera represents our greatest opportunity to improve the way people live and communicate. We contribute to human progress by empowering people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together. For more information, visit snap.com.
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