Snap’s new AI feature lets you create Snapchat Lenses by simply describing them
The firm behind Snapchat, Snap, is adding more AI tools to its toolkit for content producers.
The company announced the launch of Easy Lens, a new tool that converts plain-English descriptions into Lenses—its exclusive collection of augmented reality (AR) objects, 3D effects, characters, and photo and video transformations—during this year’s Snap Partner Summit in Santa Monica, California. Using generative AI models, Easy Lens, a feature of Snap’s Lens Studio developer platform, parses text and creates a Lens automatically using Lens Studio components.
Snap is also introducing Body Morph, a generative tool in Lens Studio that allows users to create 3D characters, outfits, and captions from a text caption or reference image. Along with hundreds of animations for Bitmoji, the customized emoji on Snapchat, that can be combined using a new blending feature, Lens Studio will also get an image generator designed specifically to create icons for Lenses.
According to Snap, Lens Studio will soon get even more generative features, such as a unique animation generator and a feature that allows users to upload videos of objects to Lens Studio and have the program recreate them as 3D assets.
Evan Spiegel, the CEO of Snap, stressed in a recent memo that despite significant investments in generative AI, the company still views the technology as “transformative” to Snap’s various properties. Spiegel actually argued that generative AI is largely to blame for Snap’s creator expansion.
Spiegel stated, “Our on-devices model will allow us to further scale these experiences with faster generation and lower cost. Our AI Lenses are already some of the most popular Lenses on Snapchat.” “There are a lot more opportunities this year to help people reimagine and reinterpret their [Snapchat] Memories in new ways, enable generative video experiences, and further improve identity preservation in generative Snaps.”
According to Snap, there were 375,000 creators publishing Lenses as of this month, up from 330,000 in November of last year. Over the same time period, Snapchat’s AR glasses, Spectacles, as well as websites and mobile apps all had an increase in Lenses from 3.5 million to 4 million.