Snap, the parent firm of Snapchat, is unveiling new augmented reality (AR) retail technologies that will benefit both companies and consumers. This year, the company is holding its annual Snap Partner Summit (2022). It focuses on its new AR technologies and features for making the shopping experience better through an immersive AR shopping environment.
Snap intends to deliver AI-powered buying lenses for trying on clothing as part of its AR shopping experience. In the same way that other social media platforms have filters, Snapchat features “Lenses,” which are essentially AR filters. For the first time ever, Snapchat has included a dedicated section in the app called “Dress Up.” All the best augmented reality fashion and try-on experiences from designers, shops, and brands will be in one spot for users to enjoy.
As a Lens Explorer feature, it’ll allow people all over the world to peruse, discover, and share the latest designs. There will be a shopping section in the profile of Snapchat users where they can find things that have been favorited, viewed lately, and added to a shopping bag. According to Snap, if a brand’s lenses are included in their brand profiles, they will be evaluated for dress up.
There is a wide range of things that can be rendered in augmented reality, from eyewear to shoes to furniture and even a purse. AR Image Processing technology will also be available for enterprises. Businesses can use their existing product imagery for their e-commerce websites to create AR-ready assets for Snapchat’s AR Try-on Lens experiences. A partnership with Puma and Ralph Lauren will be used as part of early testing for AR shopping in the beginning.
The AR experience won’t be limited to Snap’s platform, either. Shoppers may now use the Camera Kit for shopping to create their own augmented reality experiences on their own websites and mobile devices. However, it will be in beta at the time. This will be made available to a wider audience after a successful beta-testing period. Adding Ray Tracing to Lens Studio is also a new addition from Snap. In order to improve the realism of augmented reality (AR), developers and businesses will be able to design lenses that reflect the real world. Tiffany & Co. is helping to demonstrate this with a forthcoming lens that has their “Bird on a Rock” brooch glinting and flying in the sky.
Snap unveiled the Minis in 2020, giving partners access to our html5 game engine to create bite-sized social experiences within Snapchat. Over 20 Minis now help the community accomplish everything from shopping with pals to voting with partners including Ticketmaster, HBO Max, Poshmark, and Headspace.
With the new Director Mode editing capabilities in Snapchat, it’ll be even easier to create videos that stand out. To capture a 360-degree view, their new Dual Camera feature allows you to use both the front and back cameras. Creators will now be able to create 3D Bitmoji-animated lenses for Lenses on Snap – Recently Snapchat introduced Dynamic story feature as well.
Speaking on the announcement, Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snap Inc., said,
We’re so excited to celebrate our partners and all of the work they are doing to transform the world through augmented reality. We can’t wait to share all of the new tools and capabilities that creators, developers, and partners can use to grow their businesses, on and off Snapchat.
According to the Snapchat blog post,
Alongside new features, Snap announced that Snapchat now reaches over 600 million monthly and more than 332 million daily active users around the world. Snap also now works with over half a million partners, creators, and developers to provide its community with innovative products and services.