Snap Inc. presents new features across its platform, including enhanced AR tools and new camera and shopping tools at the annual partnership summit

At Snap’s Partner Summit on Thursday, the Snapchat creator declared various new initiatives focused on using its AR technology to help with online shopping. Most prominently, the organization is presenting a new in-app destination within Snapchat called “Dress Up” that will include AR fashion and virtual try-on experiences, and its launching tools will permit retailers to integrate with Snapchat’s AR shopping technology within their own websites and apps, among different updates intended to facilitate the process of AR asset creation.

The organization has been making progress with AR-powered e-commerce over the past year, has given its computer vision-based “Scan” feature a more conspicuous position inside the Camera section of the app, and updated it with commerce capabilities. Before 2022, Snap likewise carried out support for real-time pricing and product details to upgrade its AR shopping listings.

These enhancements have yielded expanded consumer engagement with AR commerce, Snap says. Since January 2021, a greater number than 250 million Snapchat users have engaged with AR shopping Lenses more than 5 billion times, the organization notes.

Today, Snap declared it will put AR technology all the more straightforwardly into retailers’ own hands by permitting them to use Snap’s AR try-on technology within their own mobile apps and websites, with Camera Kit for AR Shopping.

This AR SDK (software development kit) will bring catalog-powered shopping lenses into the retailer’s own product pages to permit their clients to virtually try on their clothing, accessories, shoes, and more. At launch, the feature works on iOS and Android apps, however, Snap says it will work “soon” on websites, also.

Its first global partner to use the technology is Puma, which will permit customers to virtually try on its sneakers using the Camera Kit integration. Customers would essentially guide their phone at their feet to see the sneakers they’re thinking about showing up in an AR view.

Retailers will likewise gain access to a new AR Image Processing technology in Snap’s 3D asset manager, which Snap says will make it easier and faster to build augmented reality shopping experiences. Through a web interface, brands will actually want to select their product SKUs and afterward transform them into Shopping Lenses, permitting them to make new Lenses in seconds, and for no extra cost, Snap claims.

To do as such, partners will upload their current product photography for the SKUs they sell, which Snap’s tech will then, at that point, the process using a deep-learning module that transforms them into AR Image assets. This process uses AI to segment the garment from the brand’s model photography, basically transforming standard photos into AR assets.

These assets can then be used to make new try-on Lenses which can be used by customers at home who take a full-body selfie photo.

The organization is likewise adding new AR Shopping templates in its Lens Web Builder to transform those assets into Lense all the more rapidly, without the need to figure out AR development. Select partners in apparel, eyewear, and footwear can give this a shot in beta today, and Snap will later extend the feature to include furniture and handbags.

Connected with this, Snap is giving AR shopping a greater spot within its own app for consumers.

Snapchat will present a new in-app destination called “Dress Up,” where clients can browse and find new try-on experiences from makers, retailers, and fashion brands in a single spot. “Dress Up” will be most readily accessible in Lens Explorer, however, will soon be added one tap away from the Camera in the AR Bar.

Users will actually want to get back to outfits and different products they preferred by navigating to a new shopping section from within their Profile, where they can see the things they’ve favorited, recently seen, and added to a cart.

As another example, Snap says that Zenni Optical’s AR Lenses have been tried on over 60 million times by clients, and Lenses that used Snap’s “true size” technology were displayed to have driven a 42% higher return on ad spend contrasted with Lenses without the feature.

At long last, in the realm of virtual fashion, Snap’s Bitmoji is getting an update, as well. There are presently over 1 billion of these mini avatars made to date, which individuals like to dress up in virtual fashion items. Snap says fashion brand partners can now drop “Limited Edition” fashion items for Bitmoji exclusively for Snapchat users.