A newly redesigned Snapchat experience is built around a three-tab user interface called Simple Snapchat. As part of that effort, the social platform is launching more generative video features, including text-to-video as part of the app’s Lens Studio AR authoring tool. Easy Lens allows the quick generation of Lenses by typing text prompts, making it possible to do things like experiment with Halloween costumes or explore looks for back to school. Launching in beta for select creators, Snap says the new features are designed for all ability levels. The company is also updating its GenAI Suite and adding an Animation Library of “hundreds of high-quality movements.”

Among the library’s uses will be letting creators stitch multiple animation clips together through Animation Blending. Body Morph generates full 3D characters, costumes and outfits through a text or image prompt. Lastly, Icon Generation provides images for creators to use to represent their Lens on Snapchat, making discovery easier.

Snapchat has more Lens Studio upgrades in the works, promising to soon “make it possible to generate an animation through a simple description, bringing Bitmoji to life,” the company explains in a newsroom post.

The company plans to “support Video-to-3D Gaussian Splats, letting creators bring 3D renderings of real-world objects into Lenses.” By taking a short video of an object and uploading it to Lens Studio, the object will be reconstructed into what Snap says will be “a photorealistic 3D asset.”

Social Media Today says Snap’s generative video ambition “goes further than the AI processes offered by both Meta and TikTok,” which have text-to-video models that are “not available in their respective apps as yet.” Neither is Snap’s, but in detailing a roadmap “in some ways, Snap’s beating the others to the punch.”

The Simple Snapchat redesign, “brings Stories closer to conversations, it simplifies content discovery, and it brings people straight into our camera to express themselves,” Snap CEO Evan Spiegel tells The Verge.

Snapchat has featured five main tabs: the Snap Map, private chat, the camera, Stories, and Spotlight (Snap’s version of TikTok and Instagram Reels).

Additionally, Snap is making its MyAI assistant (powered by ChatGPT) more full-featured, “with the ability to ‘problem solve’ based on photo snaps,” Engadget explains, noting “the assistant will be able to translate restaurant menus, identify plants and understand parking signs,” among other things.

The announcements were made this week at the Snap Partner Summit in Los Angeles, where the company also shared new community-building tools as well as usage figures for popular AR apps.