Snapchat brings AI video generation to users with new Animate It lens

Snapchat announced the launch of Animate It on December 22, 2025, introducing its first open-prompt video generation lens to the platform. The feature allows Lens+ subscribers to create short, shareable videos from text prompts in seconds using Snapchat's internally developed AI video generation model.

Animate It represents a significant technical milestone for the social media platform, which has invested heavily in augmented reality and artificial intelligence capabilities throughout 2025. The feature enables users to generate animated content directly from the Snapchat camera without requiring external editing tools or production expertise.

According to the company's announcement, users can access Animate It by searching for it from the camera interface. After selecting the lens, users tap the caption field to enter custom prompts or choose from suggested options. The system processes these inputs and generates personalized videos within seconds, creating what the company describes as "one-of-a-kind animated creation ready to share anywhere on Snapchat or beyond."

The technical implementation relies on Snap's proprietary AI video generation model rather than third-party technology. This approach follows the company's pattern of developing AI capabilities internally, building on infrastructure investments that have supported augmented reality features for years. The model's training and architecture details were not disclosed in the announcement, though the company emphasized the speed of generation as a key differentiator.

Animate It launches exclusively for Lens+ subscribers, a premium tier Snapchat introduced on June 11, 2025. The subscription service builds upon Snapchat+, which attracted more than 15 million users by mid-2025. Lens+ provides access to exclusive augmented reality experiences, including AI video lenses and Bitmoji Game Lenses, creating a multi-tiered monetization structure beyond traditional advertising revenue.

The business model demonstrates Snapchat's strategic shift toward subscription revenue. While the platform continues generating substantial income through sponsored content and AR advertising formats, Lens+ creates direct payment relationships with users for premium experiences. This diversification strategy mirrors broader social media platform trends seeking revenue streams independent of advertising market fluctuations.

Market positioning becomes particularly relevant given competitive dynamics in AI-powered creative tools. The Interactive Advertising Bureau reported on July 15, 2025, that 86% of buyers currently use or plan to implement generative AI for video advertisement creation, with projections indicating AI-generated content will account for 40% of all advertisements by 2026. Major advertising platforms have launched comprehensive AI creative suites throughout 2025, including Google's Asset Studio and Microsoft's Image Animation capabilities.

Snapchat's approach differs from advertising-focused AI tools by targeting consumer content creation rather than brand creative production. The camera-first integration positions video generation as an extension of existing capture workflows rather than standalone generation modes. Users generate content within the familiar Snapchat camera interface, maintaining consistency with the platform's core user experience design principles.

The technical infrastructure supporting large-scale AI generation draws upon machine learning investments spanning multiple years. Snapchat reported in Q1 2024 that ML and AI lens viewership increased 50% year-over-year, indicating sustained engagement with algorithmically enhanced experiences. By Q2 2025, the platform reached 469 million daily active users, representing 9% year-over-year growth with 932 million monthly active users approaching the company's strategic target of 1 billion users globally.

Platform infrastructure already processes more than 8 billion daily lens engagements according to company data. This baseline usage provides substantial computing resources and user interaction data that inform AI model training and optimization. The company allocated resources toward ML and AI model development throughout 2025 to drive advertiser performance improvements and content personalization capabilities, with these investments now extending to consumer-facing generative features.

For the marketing community, Animate It represents both competitive pressure and potential advertising applications. Snapchat launched Sponsored AI Lenses on April 8, 2025, providing brands with AI-generated personalized experiences that achieved higher engagement metrics compared to standard lens formats. Internal data from campaigns between November 2024 and January 2025 showed users spent more time with Sponsored AI Lenses than traditional AR advertising formats, with brands including Uber and Tinder reporting above-average playtime statistics.

The democratization of video generation capabilities through consumer tools like Animate It creates new expectations for advertising creative quality and personalization. Users experiencing AI-generated video creation firsthand develop familiarity with the technology's capabilities and limitations, potentially influencing their receptiveness to AI-generated advertising content. This consumer education effect has implications for how brands deploy similar technologies in sponsored formats.

Content creation barriers have historically limited user-generated video on social platforms. Traditional video production requires planning, recording equipment, editing software expertise, and time investment that many users cannot provide consistently. Text-to-video generation eliminates these obstacles, potentially increasing video content volume and diversity across the platform. Higher content volumes create additional inventory for advertising placement while shifting user engagement patterns toward video consumption.

Advertising measurement partnerships provide validation for AR and video format effectiveness on Snapchat. The company collaborated with Lumen Research starting in 2021 to measure visual attention through eye-tracking technology, with research indicating one second of visual attention per impression correlated with a 20-fold increase in ad recall. AR lens and commercial ads demonstrated 40% lower cost of attention compared to alternative formats, supporting continued investment in augmented reality and video advertising products.

The subscription model implementation includes deliberate design choices around feature access and monetization. By restricting Animate It to Lens+ subscribers, Snapchat creates exclusive value justifying recurring payments while managing infrastructure costs associated with computationally intensive AI generation. The company previously made certain AI capabilities more accessible, removing subscription requirements for its Imagine Lens text-to-image generation feature in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and Australia in October 2025, though with implementation of limited free generations to manage usage patterns.

Technical specifications for Animate It remain undisclosed in the initial announcement. The company did not specify video duration limits, generation quality parameters, or processing time ranges beyond describing creation as occurring "in seconds." These details influence user adoption patterns and platform resource allocation. Video duration, resolution, and stylistic capabilities determine the feature's utility for different content creation scenarios.

Competitive context extends beyond social media platforms to standalone AI video generation tools. Companies including Runway, Pika, and Stability AI offer text-to-video generation capabilities through web interfaces and APIs. These tools serve creative professionals and developers rather than mainstream social media users, operating in different market segments with distinct pricing models and feature sets. Snapchat's integration of similar capabilities directly into a mobile social camera differentiates the offering through accessibility and distribution rather than technical sophistication.

The announcement timing positions Animate It for holiday season usage when social sharing and content creation typically increase. User engagement patterns during year-end holidays provide initial performance data for the feature, informing future development priorities and expansion decisions. Early adoption metrics, usage patterns, and retention statistics will guide whether the company extends similar capabilities beyond the subscription tier.

Privacy and content moderation considerations accompany AI-generated content features. The system must implement safeguards preventing generation of inappropriate, harmful, or policy-violating content. These controls require training data curation, output filtering, and user reporting mechanisms. The company's announcement did not detail content moderation approaches for AI-generated videos, though platform-wide content policies presumably apply to generated material.

Creator ecosystem implications extend beyond individual user content generation. Snapchat operates a structured creator monetization program with specific eligibility requirements introduced in February 2025, including minimum thresholds of 50,000 followers and engagement metrics spanning 10 million Snap views, 1 million Spotlight views, or 12,000 viewing hours within 28-day periods. AI-generated content could potentially help creators meet production volume requirements while raising questions about originality and creative value in monetization calculations.

Platform feature development throughout 2025 shows consistent emphasis on personalization and AI integration. Snapchat introduced infinite retention and group streaks in September, departing from traditional ephemeral messaging models. The company launched Topic Chats in November for public conversations in Canada, New Zealand, and the United States, expanding beyond private messaging into community discussion formats. These developments demonstrate platform strategy balancing traditional strengths in private, temporary communication with expanded capabilities for content creation, sharing, and public discourse.

International creator community growth supports platform expansion beyond North American markets. Research findings indicated India leads global AR lens creation on Snapchat, with the developer community expanding by more than 50% between January 2023 and January 2025. Monthly AR lens engagement reached 80 billion interactions between April and December 2024 in India alone. This geographic diversity in content creation suggests potential markets for Animate It expansion beyond the initial Lens+ subscriber base.

Technical architecture decisions influence long-term platform capabilities and limitations. Internally developed AI models provide greater control over feature roadmaps, model updates, and integration with existing Snapchat infrastructure compared to third-party licensing arrangements. This independence enables rapid iteration and customization specific to platform requirements, though it requires sustained research and development investment to remain competitive with specialized AI companies focusing exclusively on generative models.

User interface design choices affect feature accessibility and adoption rates. The announcement describes a simple three-step process: searching for Animate It from the camera, selecting the lens and entering prompts, and watching concept transformation into video. This workflow consistency with existing lens usage patterns reduces learning curves for users familiar with Snapchat's AR features while introducing fundamentally different creation capabilities.

Suggested prompts mentioned in the announcement serve multiple functions. They provide immediate utility for users uncertain about video generation possibilities while demonstrating feature capabilities and guiding appropriate usage. The prompts also generate initial training data about user preferences and popular content types, informing future model improvements and feature refinements.

Distribution beyond Snapchat represents a strategic consideration. The announcement explicitly mentions sharing videos "anywhere on Snapchat or beyond," indicating the company supports cross-platform distribution of generated content. This approach contrasts with platform strategies prioritizing content retention within proprietary ecosystems. By enabling external sharing, Snapchat potentially gains viral distribution and brand awareness while accepting that generated content may drive engagement on competing platforms.

The marketing technology landscape increasingly incorporates generative AI across content creation, campaign optimization, and measurement. Amazon expanded Creative Agent capabilities to Streaming TV advertising formats in November 2025, while Meta introduced AI-powered video tools for Facebook and Instagram advertisements throughout 2024 and 2025. These platform capabilities focus on advertiser efficiency and creative production at scale rather than consumer content generation, occupying adjacent market positions to Snapchat's Animate It.

Small and medium-sized businesses demonstrate faster AI adoption rates compared to larger enterprises when implementing capabilities to produce professional-quality content efficiently without extensive production teams. Multiple advertising technology companies launched AI-powered creative tools in 2025, including MNTN's QuickFrame AI announced October 30, which combines Google's Veo, ElevenLabs, and Stability AI to generate complete commercials from URLs in 12 minutes.

Revenue implications extend beyond direct subscription fees. Increased user engagement driven by new creative capabilities translates to higher inventory for advertising placement and improved metrics that support rate increases for sponsored content. Platform value for advertisers correlates with user time spent and content interaction depth, both potentially enhanced through expanded creative tools.

Content authenticity concerns accompany AI-generated media proliferation. While Animate It creates animated rather than photorealistic content, distinguishing between human-created and AI-generated videos becomes increasingly relevant for platform integrity and user trust. Industry discussions around watermarking, disclosure requirements, and synthetic media labeling continue developing regulatory and technical standards that may affect future implementations.

Computational resource allocation represents ongoing operational considerations. AI video generation requires substantial processing power, creating infrastructure costs that scale with usage. The Lens+ subscription model provides revenue to offset these costs while limiting feature access manages total platform resource consumption. This economic balancing shapes feature availability, generation limits, and quality parameters.

Snapchat's announcement positions the company in expanding markets for consumer AI tools while maintaining differentiation through camera-first mobile integration. The feature's success depends on subscription conversion rates, user retention, generated content quality, and competitive responses from platforms offering similar capabilities. Initial implementation as a premium feature provides flexibility for future accessibility changes based on market reception and economic viability.

Timeline

• June 4, 2025: Snapchat introduces simplified AR creation tools for mobile and web platforms
• June 11, 2025: Snapchat announces Lens+ premium subscription tier with exclusive AI video lenses
• August 5, 2025: Snapchat Q2 earnings show 9% revenue growth with Lens+ integration
• September 13, 2025: Snapchat launches infinite retention and group streaks features
• October 25, 2025: Snapchat makes AI image generation free in United States, Canada, Great Britain, and Australia
• November 17, 2025: Snapchat introduces Topic Chats in Canada, New Zealand, and United States
• December 22, 2025: Snapchat launches Animate It, first open-prompt video generation lens for Lens+ subscribers

Summary

Who: Snapchat, the social media platform owned by Snap Inc., announced the feature for Lens+ subscribers within its user base of 932 million monthly active users and 469 million daily active users as of Q2 2025.

What: Animate It is an open-prompt video generation lens that uses Snapchat's internally developed AI video generation model to create short, shareable animated videos from text prompts in seconds, representing the platform's first consumer-facing prompt-based video creation tool.

When: The announcement occurred on December 22, 2025, with immediate availability for Lens+ subscribers following months of AI capability expansion including free AI image generation in October and premium subscription tier introduction in June.

Where: The feature operates within Snapchat's camera interface, accessible through the lens carousel, and generates content sharable both within Snapchat and across external platforms.

Why: The launch advances Snapchat's subscription monetization strategy while differentiating the platform through camera-first AI video generation capabilities, responding to broader industry trends showing 86% of buyers planning to implement generative AI for video content creation by 2026 while managing infrastructure costs through premium tier exclusivity.