Snapchat has announced a range of new augmented reality tools and experiences for users, creators and businesses as part of its third Snap Partner Summit held virtually.

Snap, as part of its developments in AR introduced the next generation of Spectacles, its AR glasses.

“Not for sale and designed for creators, Spectacles enable augmented reality creators to discover new ways to fuse creativity and utility through immersive experiences built in Lens Studio,” it said.

Spectacles are fully integrated with Lens Studio. Creators and developers can leverage Lens Studio to build and distribute Lenses across Snap’s AR platform.

It is also building its Scan feature, front and centre to the home camera screen. Scan matches what a user sees through the camera with relevant AR experiences. Over 170 million Snapchatters use Scan every month, it said. It is also adding a new shopping feature to Scan.

“Screenshop is a new Scan feature: when you Scan a friend’s outfit or your own saved photos, it helps you shop similar looks with recommendations from hundreds of brands. This builds on the existing Scan capabilities, which can use the Snapchat camera to identify types of plants, dog breeds, wine bottles, car models, songs etc. through partner integrations,” it said.

It has also introduced new AR shopping and business solutions.

With over 200 million Snapchatters engaging with AR daily, the platform will add new features that make virtual shopping and ‘try-on’ experiences more realistic, accurate, and easy to use, it said.

Snap is introducing several new AR try-on experiences alongside fashion partners in the US.

It is also introducing Public Profiles for Businesses.

“Now any partner can establish a permanent presence on Snapchat to showcase their best AR Lenses and Stories — plus a ‘Shop’ page where Snapchatters can browse and buy, which turns Snapchat into a new organic point of sale,” it said.

The platform has been beta testing this since July 2020. Eventually, Public Profiles will also enable businesses to integrate with the Map, adding more reach across the core tabs of the app, it said.

Separately, brands can soon seamlessly build AR Shopping Lenses by simply uploading their product catalogues and 3D product assets through the API in Business Manager.

It has also launched connected AR lenses where users can interact from anywhere across the room or across the globe through Lenses.

It also provided a glimpse into Lens Studio 4.0 for creators.

“Snap’s AR creator ecosystem is booming: with 200,000+ Lens Creators around the world, who have made nearly 2 million Lenses, that have been viewed by Snapchatters more than 2 trillion times. The updated Lens Studio, which is free desktop software, adds 3D Body Mesh, Cloth Simulation, and a Visual Effects Editor that make AR look and move more realistically,” it said.

The company made a range of announcements including new features, products and partnerships spanning three key areas — Augmented Reality, Developers, and Creators at the summit.

For developers, Snap announced new developer tools across Snap Kit, Games, Minis, Bitmoji and Snap Map with a range of new partnerships.

Earlier this year, Snap announced its partnership with Moj, wherein it became the first Indian company to integrate Snap's Camera kit.

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