Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, is revamping its suite of AI tools to empower creators with more innovative features. During the Snap Partner Summit in sunny Santa Monica, California, the company unveiled a groundbreaking addition called Easy Lens. This feature transforms everyday English descriptions into intricate Lenses, which are Snapchat’s signature augmented reality (AR) objects, 3D effects, characters, and transformations for photos and videos. Integrated into Snap’s Lens Studio developer platform, Easy Lens uses state-of-the-art generative AI models to interpret your descriptions and automatically create a Lens using various Lens Studio components.
Additionally, Lens Studio is getting some exciting new updates. One of these is called Body Morph—a generative tool designed to craft 3D characters, costumes, and outfits from either a text caption or a reference image. This isn’t just about static images; Snap is also introducing an image generator aimed specifically at creating icons for Lenses. Creators will love the hundreds of new animations available for Bitmoji, Snapchat’s personalized emojis, which can be seamlessly blended together with a fresh new feature.
And that’s not all. Snap is looking ahead with plans to infuse even more generative capabilities into Lens Studio. Future enhancements include a custom animation generator and a fascinating tool that enables creators to upload a video of an object and have the software convert it into a 3D asset.
In a recent company memo, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel doubled down on Snap’s commitment to generative AI, calling it “transformative” for the platform’s various features. He emphasized that generative AI plays a significant role in Snap’s growing creator ecosystem.
“Our AI Lenses are already some of the most popular on Snapchat, and our on-device model will let us scale these experiences further with faster generation and lower costs,” Spiegel wrote. “This year opens up numerous opportunities to enhance identity preservation in generative Snaps, develop generative video experiences, and enable users to reimagine their Snapchat Memories in novel ways.”
The surge in creativity is evident as Snap reports a rise in the number of creators to 375,000, up from 330,000 last November. Likewise, Lenses on Snapchat, websites, mobile apps, and Snap’s AR glasses, Spectacles, have grown in number, from 3.5 million to 4 million in the same period.
However, Snap is also grappling with challenges. The company’s Q3 earnings fell short of market expectations, largely due to a sluggish ad market. Advertising revenue remains critical for Snap, which saw a staggering loss of over $4.6 billion in market value in just one day this past August as shares plunged.
In an effort to bounce back, Spiegel mentioned in the memo that Snap plans to roll out new ad formats to attract advertisers and will also test a “simplified” version of the Snapchat app.
Snap is betting big on generative AI to bolster its creative tools and enchant its users, setting the stage for even more dynamic and interactive experiences on the platform.
