Snapchat now has a new type of AR Try On experience, with the latest campaign from Cartier assisting to showcase Snap's latest ring try on, allowing users to see how the latest Cartier "Trinity" ring looks on their finger .
Snap's Ring Try on lets you see how a ring might look on your hand -- and on any finger you want.
In the words of Snap:

Explore the collection, try on the Classic Trinity Ring, and shop anywhere, anytime-with just a few taps on Cartier Trinity Ring Lens. Our new ring-try on technology combined with Ray Tracing and Hand Tracking makes it more accurate and lifelike than ever. The ring tracks and moves with your hand movement, while Cartier's Classic Trinity Ring shines with the slightest of realism.

According to the company, it produced this new experience in collaboration with Cartier, focusing on quality and the reflection of metals and diamonds and the accuracy of fit.
"It uses machine learning to predict the 3D hand surface, which helps it better understand the shape of each individual hand."

It's another way Snap might enhance shopping: use the app as a place to try on new looks, perhaps in a big step forward for online commerce.

The feature complements Snapchat's existing AR Try On options: makeup, handbags, glasses, nail polish, and shoes.
Snapchat is also developing more complex tools that enable it to provide various types of clothing Try-On experiences using AR "Occluders" for greater fidelity in representing real world items in the digital environment.

Eventually, users can try on anything in AR with increasingly accurate depictions of how they actually look in real life. That may not replace the in-store experience entirely, but it will help to better augment the process, and guide users' in-stream purchase decisions.

Which could be big help for Snap's broader ads business and could also see Snap play a major role in the development of AR, with or without Snap developing its own version of AR glasses.

Of course, the above has long been assumed to be the trajectory for the company, given how Snap had released its first Snap Spectacles all the way back in 2016. Still, cost pressures may have lately appeared to restrain the development of a fully AR-enabled version of the product, though Snap CEO Evan Spiegel has continued to insist that the company's AR work remains one of its top priorities.

Snap is indeed testing an AR-enabled version of Spectacles since 2021, so it may still be trying to push for gains against Meta and Apple on the consumer AR tech front. More recent cost-cutting, though and the high development costs of competing with these giants might make Snap look to alternative means of advancing its AR development.

As such, new applications like this are important, because demand for AR applications only goes to rise and this could provide a new pathway for revenue to Snap, by licensing its tech to other providers.

Or, as I have speculated in the past, maybe it can be acquired by one of the larger players. Snap has had a long-running partnership with Apple on AR development, and with its advanced production pipeline for consumer products, it would seem to be a significant benefit for Apple to buy up Snap to boost the production of its own AR glasses.
I still think that might be the case, as Snap's likely asking price decreases as the result of its persistent revenue headaches. In any event, however, more sophisticated try-on tools will be of some service to Snap in building toward the next iteration of digital connection.