The company has announced the introduction of AR Lenses powered by generative AI at its Snap Partner Summit today. To start, the platform is rolling out a new "Cosmic Lens" that turns you and your surroundings into an immersive, animated sci-fi scene.

“Today, we’re introducing a new generation of Lenses powered by generative AI,” Snap CTO Bobby Murphy said during the event. “AI and AR are deeply interconnected, powering a new spectrum of creative possibilities. Our vision is to weave computing seamlessly into the world — and support our vibrant community of AR creators, developers and partners.”

It's not surprising that Snapchat is venturing into the world of generative AI to enhance its AR Lenses, especially since it already got in on the AI frenzy with its My AI chatbot. It's worth noting that Snapchat isn't the only popular social media platform to use AI to enhance its AR offerings, as TikTok recently stunned viewers with its hyper-realistic AI-powered "Bold Glamour" filter.

In addition to releasing generative AI Lenses, Snapchat announced that it is going to make it easier for users to find relevant Lenses. The app is going to start recommending lenses that fit with the context of a photo or video that a user has captured. As explained by Snapchat, this is going to be done using a combination of visual understanding of what is in the view of the camera and APIs that understand specific factors, such as the local weather, forecast, and time of day.

The company also rolled out improvements to its Lens Carousel ranking algorithms that recommend Lenses based on users' unique preferences, and also updated the AR Bar to mean that users will find hundreds of suggested Lenses organised by category, right on the Camera screen.

Snapchat is also testing ways to make it faster to add AR to Memories. Users start to see their recent shots alongside Lenses in the Snapchat Camera, so that they can easily access them when they're about to post a throwback Snap.

Part of the announcements includes Snapchat reporting more than 300,000 AR creators and developers globally who have made more than 3 million Lenses. The company further states that some of its popular Lenses have garnered views that exceed 10 billion.

At today's event, Snap made a series of announcements and unveiled a slew of new features coming to the app. The company is rolling out new Stories features, adding updates to the Snap Map, enhancing Bitmoji, introducing new ways to virtually interact with friends and more.