Snapchat has launched a new form of its popular AR Lens feature, with “Video Gen AI Lenses,” which are custom created animations that align with your video clips.
As you can see in these examples, with Snap’s AI video Lenses, users will be able to take a video, then have Snap’s system fill in the animations to align with the clip.
As explained by Snap:
“These Lenses, powered by our in-house built generative video model, bring some of the most cutting edge AI tools available today to Snapchatters through a familiar Lens format. We have a long history of being first movers to bring advanced AR, ML and AI tools directly to our community, and we’re excited to see what Snapchatters create.”
So, how it works is, first, you select the Lens that you want. There’ll be three video gen AI Lenses to begin with: “Raccoon,” “Fox,” and “Spring Flowers.
You then capture a Snap and submit it for processing. From there, Snapchat’s system will animate the Snap with your chosen effect, giving you a custom version of the Lens effect, which, once processed, will be made available in your “Memories” collection.
So it’s pretty similar to regular Lenses, but with a more personalized touch, built by AI.
Though it won’t be available to all users at launch.
Snapchat’s initially making the option available to Snapchat+ Platinum subscribers only.
Snapchat+ Platinum is the top-priced version of the Snapchat+ subscription option, with users paying $15.99 per month for an ad-free Snap experience.
This ad-free option has been available for some time, but Snap only recently changed the name to “Platinum” , so you may not have known about its top-priced package. But essentially, Snap’s trying to build on the success of Snapchat+, which now has 14 million paying subscribers, by implementing a more expensive, more exclusive version of its paid add-on service.
So, will AI video Lenses get more people paying up?
On balance, it seems like a fairly light addition, despite the technological leap that it represents for the app. Again, you can already kind of replicate the same with regular Lenses, with this version only offering a more customized experience based on your content.
That could be good in some contexts, and I have no doubt that Snap will come up with some creative, engaging AI video Lens options that’ll drive more interest.
But right now, I can’t see many people paying specifically for this function, with the added bonus of also culling ads from your feed.
But Snap has always been in-tune with its audience, and has regularly added features that resonate. As such, it may well be onto a winner here too, and I just can’t quite see the same vision as yet.
Time will tell, and I do think, at some stage, these new video AI Lenses will be made available to all users.
