BT Exclusive: India is a big opportunity for AR, says Snap Inc CEO Evan Spiegel

Snapchat, the multimedia instant messaging app, sees augmented reality (AR) as a clear business opportunity in India. Earlier in the week, Snap Inc, the $4.6-billion company that owns the app, hosted an AR day. 

In an exclusive conversation with Business Today in Amanbagh (off Jaipur), Evan Spiegel, co-founder & CEO of Snap Inc, said it allowed the company to connect “with all the developers who are making so many new augmented reality experiences.” The exciting thing for him came from many quarters. “There are folks who are creating videos, showing them their friends expressing themselves and communicating with Snapchat. So, it's been so exciting to see the way that our product is resonating here in India," he said.

As a platform Snapchat was built (the company was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in California’s Santa Monica) to provide an alternative to social media. The form of expression was through a camera, making the app unique from competition. 

Spiegel picked out another big opportunity for his company. “Since so many people love using our cameras and expressing themselves with friends and brands, it allows them to engage with their AR tools. It means sharing the AR effects with their friends and that that can help drive business results for them as well,” he said. 

Also Read: Big opportunity in India; incredible to see Indians use AR, says Snap Inc CEO Evan Spiegel

Over the next couple of days, the company is expected to unfurl a lot of initiatives around AR. “You will see a lot of it and a lot of what we're doing is bringing machine learning tools into Lens Studio, which is only a developer environment that allows people to build AR lenses. I think with a lot of these AI-assisted tools will help people build lenses faster and also help generate some of the 3D assets that are necessary to build an amazing AR experience,” said Spiegel. 

To him, historically, 3D assets have been really hard to build. “It takes a lot of time, many hours and a lot of sophisticated development to do that and AI can help build those 3D assets faster. I think that will lead to more creativity and experimentation and augmented reality for developers," he added.

From an Indian perspective, Spiegel is optimistic about a few things. “One is just the number of young people here who are all thinking about growth and the future of the country and that gives incredible energy to everything that we do here. In India, we also just see an enormous amount of creativity from the very early days when we started teaching people how to use lens studios in the classroom, right and leading classes on augmented reality,” he said. 

That apart, he looks at “an enormous uptake and embrace of these tools in AR” as a huge plus. “That openness to creativity and youthful energy with the optimism about the future makes it really exciting to be here," he said.

Also Read: There’s an unbelievable amount of creativity on Snapchat in India: Snap Inc CEO Evan Spiegel