Snap has established itself as a leader in augmented reality, without all the fuss of Meta but with tangible results. During a keynote, the Snapchat editor presented several new features to keep your head!
Of course, Snap launched its Pixy drone this week, which is reminiscent of a selfie stick but… flying! However, this was not the only novelty presented by the creator of Snapchat during the Partner Summit. The company has taken care of its content creators, whose 2.5 million Lenses have been viewed more than 5,000 billion times.
Lenses to do everything
Snap is therefore launching Lens Cloud, a set of free services expanding the range of possibilities for Lenses in augmented reality. First of all, there are the Storages Services, which store the essential resources for complex and interactive Lenses in the cloud. Location Services help developers anchor their Lens in locations anywhere in the world. London is the first capital available, others will follow.
Finally, the Multi-Users Services make it possible to share the augmented reality experience of the same Lens between several users. The Lens Studio software tool will host the Ray Tracing function, to improve the realism of AR elements. As Snap points out, this is the first time that such a function has been offered on smartphones.
Developers have the ability to add social elements (ratings, reviews, recommendations, etc.) to their applications for Snapchat, the Minis Private Components System.
The publisher does not forget the business aspect of its application. Since January 2021, 250 million users have used Augmented Reality Shopping Lenses more than 5 billion times. Suffice to say that for a brand, it is essential to address this audience (the return on investment is 42% higher than Lenses without AR)! One Lens in particular has been successful, it is that of Zenni Optical allowing to test glasses.
Brands will also be able to use new tools, such as Dress Up to try on clothes in augmented reality, or Snap 3D Asset Manager for the rapid creation of AR shopping experiences.