Snap emphasizes commerce in updates to its camera and AR platforms

At Snap’s Partner Summit, the company announced a number of updates to the company’s developer tools and AR-focused Lens Studio, including several focused on bringing shopping deeper into the Snapchat experience.

One of the cooler updates involved the company’s computer vision Scan product, which analyzes content in a user’s camera feed to quickly bring up relevant information. Snap says the feature is used by around 170 million users per month. Scan, which has now been given more prominent placement inside the camera section of the app, has been upgraded with commerce capabilities with a feature called Screenshop.

Users can now use their Snap Camera to scan a friend’s outfit, after which they’ll quickly be served up shopping recommendations from hundreds of brands. The company is using the same technology for another upcoming feature that will allow users to snap pictures of ingredients in their kitchen and get served recipes from Allrecipes that integrate them.

The features are part of a broader effort to intelligently suggest lenses to users based on what their camera is currently focused on.

Businesses will now be able to establish public profiles inside Snapchat, where users can see all of their different offerings, including Lenses, Highlights, Stories and items for sale through Shop functionality.

On the augmented reality side, Snap is continuing to emphasize business solutions with API integrations that make lenses smarter. Retailers will be able to use the Business Manager to integrate their product catalogs so that users can only access try-on lenses for products that are currently in stock.

Partnerships with luxury fashion platform Farfetch and Prada will tap into further updates to the AR platform, including technical 3D mesh advances that make trying on clothing virtually appear more realistic. Users will also be able to use voice commands and visual gestures to cycle between items they’re trying on in the new experiences.

“We’re excited about the power of our camera platform to bring Snapchatters together with the businesses they care about in meaningful ways,” said Snap’s global AR product lead Carolina Arguelles Navas. “And, now more than ever, our community is eager to experience and try on, engage with, and learn about new products, from home.”