Spiegel: Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel on how AI will impact the company’s AR roadmap

Technology companies are betting on artificial intelligence (AI) to maximise the potential of their tools and for Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, the technology is a means to reduce that barrier between creators/ developers and creativity.
“I think what’s so useful in terms of AI, especially for developers and creators, is that it really just reduces that barrier to creativity.One of the things that we found early on with augn=mented reality is that it is very hard to generate 3D assets,” Spiegel said during the company’s first ever APAC AR Day in India.
“It used to take someone a really long period of time to build all those 3D assets. So how can we use AI to actually reduce the barrier of creation for those 3D assets? That’s something. We’ve been investing a lot recently, to make it easier and easier for creators to build more immersive AR experiences by just reducing that barrier to creation for free images and making more exciting and immersive lenses,” he added.
Snapchat My AI chatbot
Earlier this year, Snapchat launched the My AI chatbot in India. An experimental AI-powered chatbot, My AI is customised for Snapchat that can give recommendations for places on Snap Map and Lenses, among other things.

Snap recently announced that its sixth annual Lens Fest will be held on November 9 and Spiegel hinted that the company is likely to unveil AR Lenses that use AI technology.
When asked about the use of chatbots, Spiegel said that chatbots will be an important way for people to interact with AI and boost creativity.

“I think all of us have a vision in our minds for what we want to create but oftentimes the tools just aren’t sophisticated enough for us to be able to make the image or the AR experiences,” the CEO said while replying to Snap APAC president Ajit Mohan.
“And I think AI will help reduce the distance between what’s in your imagination and what you can create on your phone or glasses. And, while I think chatbots are going to be an important way for people to use large language models (LLMs) and to interact with AI, I’m more excited for what AI is going to do for self-expression and creativity into our camera with augmented reality,” he added.