22 Dec 2023 | Mike Boland

AWE Talks: How Has Social AR Evolved?

AWE EU 2023

Key Takeaways
– Social apps have become a leading delivery channel for AR
   – This started because AR enhanced existing social behavior, like sharing selfies.
   – Social apps also offer virality, which helps spread a given AR experience.
– Building on these principles, social apps like Snapchat launched creator platforms.
   – These platforms became popular because they're free and offer built-in audiences.
– Beyond Snap (Lens Studio), Meta Spark and TikTok Effect House are formidable.
– Competition between these players has meanwhile driven rapid feature rollouts.
   – For example, once limited to lenses, functionality is becoming more expansive. 
   – The AR experiences on these platforms now resemble advanced apps or games. 
   – In fact, social AR capabilities are starting to approach that of game engines. 
   – These experiences include geo-located world-mesh and body-tracking lenses.
– Another key evolution is democratizing advanced functionality in no-code ways. 
   – These lowered barriers attract a larger and more diverse population to AR creation.
   – The result: the creator universe expands beyond developers to creators & designers.
– Lastly, all the above will inflect with AI integrations, as we examined last week.

For more color from Bouffard and van Leeuwen, including deep dives into their creataion processes, see the full video below...    

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