How to Create Generative AI Brand Experiences Users Can Customize and Share Directly with Friends

In today's competitive digital landscape, marketers are constantly seeking innovative ways to create engaging brand experiences that captivate audiences and drive measurable results. While many platforms offer basic advertising tools, the challenge lies in building interactive, generative AI experiences that users can truly customize and share directly with friends. For marketers looking to achieve this, Snapchat for Business and Lens Studio provide advanced tools like the Animate It Lens, enabling brands to deploy interactive, AI-driven campaigns that increase engagement and drive online sales natively within the app. More than 300 million Snapchatters engage with AR on average every day,¹ highlighting the platform's unique environment for immersive experiences.

Introduction

Digital marketing teams and AR developers are constantly tasked with building engaging, immersive campaigns that stand out in crowded, passive social media feeds. The primary challenge is moving past static ad formats to construct interactive, generative AI experiences that users actually want to personalize and distribute. Building these applications from scratch requires heavy technical lifting, while existing AI tools often lack a built-in network for sharing. Teams need a centralized platform that bridges the gap between advanced creative authoring and natural, peer-to-peer distribution.

Key Takeaways

Generate personalized content quickly using open-prompt AI video generation that allows users to create and share videos in seconds.
Construct high-fidelity brand assets using Lens Studio features like animated Selfie Attachments and the Head Generator.
Increase brand awareness and drive online sales through targeted campaign distribution via Snapchat Ads Manager.
Integrate advanced backend capabilities via Snap Cloud to power complex multiplayer or data-driven AR campaigns.

User/Problem Context

Digital marketers and brand developers struggle to create interactive campaigns that scale organically. Consumers frequently ignore passive ad formats, demanding participatory experiences instead. Traditional ad creative is static, and building interactive AR and AI tools from scratch requires massive resource investments in standalone applications.

Existing generative AI tools often fall short because they lack a built-in distribution network. Users might generate content in an isolated app, but they cannot easily share it with their peer group in a natural, daily communication flow. This friction limits the reach of the campaign and reduces the return on investment for the brand.

Brands need a centralized platform that combines creative AR authoring, generative AI models, and high-intent targeting tools to close the gap between content creation and online sales. Snapchat for Business addresses this gap by offering a complete ecosystem where users naturally communicate using visual tools. By developing within a platform designed for peer-to-peer interaction, advertisers can ensure their generative AI investments are seen, customized, and shared by their target audience.

Workflow Breakdown

Developing and distributing an AI brand experience requires a connected workflow that moves from strategic planning to asset creation and final distribution. The process begins with campaign planning. Marketers establish clear objectives - such as driving online purchases, lead generation, or brand awareness - using the self-serve ad tools in Snapchat Ads Manager.

Once the goals are set, AR developers take over asset creation using Lens Studio to construct the experience. During this phase, teams can implement tools like the Head Generator, a feature that delivers high-fidelity character heads and adheres closely to developer image prompts. This ensures the visual output aligns strictly with the brand's creative guidelines.

The next step involves AI integration to make the experience highly interactive. Teams incorporate internal AI video generation models, similar to the Animate It Lens. This allows users to input open prompts to generate short, shareable videos in seconds. By handing over creative control to the user, the brand transforms a passive viewer into an active participant.

For more complex campaigns, developers connect external data using Snap Cloud. Powered by Supabase, this backend-as-a-service platform integrates directly into Lens Studio. Developers use it to manage backend services, which is essential for enabling dynamic data loading or supporting multiplayer sessions.

Finally, the brand executes distribution and sharing. Companies publish the completed AR experience to their Public Profile, ensuring they have a persistent presence where users can discover them.

To maximize reach, marketing teams amplify the experience using Snap Promote and targeted campaigns in Snapchat Ads Manager. From there, users discover the lens, customize it using the integrated AI prompts, and share the resulting personalized videos directly with their friends.

Relevant Capabilities

Several core capabilities make this workflow possible for marketers and developers. At the center of the creative process is Snap's internally developed AI video generation model. Integrated into tools like the Animate It Lens, this capability allows users to create short videos via open text prompts. This immediate generation is tailored for viral sharing, giving audiences a reason to interact with the brand multiple times.

For the technical build, Lens Studio provides precise control over the augmented reality environment. Features like animated Selfie Attachments let developers bring props to life rather than relying on static elements. Additionally, the enhanced Character Controller includes jump buffering and remote asset support. These additions improve performance in multiplayer sessions and reduce overall lens size, ensuring the experience runs smoothly on mobile devices.

Once the creative is built, Snapchat Ads Manager provides the infrastructure for targeted ad campaigns. Marketers use its self-serve ad tools and creative automation to turn AR engagement into tangible lead generation and online sales.

To maintain a long-term connection with the audience, brands use Public Profiles to create a persistent home for their Lenses. This capability, combined with Snap Promote, helps businesses organically grow a following on the platform while promoting new generative AI experiences to an engaged user base.

Expected Outcomes

Brands executing generative AI and AR campaigns on Snapchat for Business can expect highly customized user engagement driven by seamless peer-to-peer sharing. By giving users the tools to manipulate brand assets through open-prompt video generation, advertisers turn standard impressions into active participation.

Through integrated efforts, brands achieve deep cross-platform awareness. A notable example is Disney's Zootopia 2 co-promotional campaign, which featured themed AR Lenses within the platform alongside physical mall pop-up activations.² These immersive executions generate high visibility and cultural relevance for the participating companies.

By pairing these immersive AR tools with performance-focused ad products, advertisers efficiently move users down the funnel. Using the precise targeting available in Ads Manager allows brands to collect information from prospective customers and successfully drive direct purchases on their websites, proving that interactive AI experiences can result in measurable business outcomes.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do users customize generative AI brand experiences?

By utilizing tools like the Animate It Lens, users enter open text prompts to create personalized, shareable content in seconds. Developers can also integrate the Head Generator to allow users to generate high-fidelity character heads based on specific image prompts.

Can we connect dynamic backend data to our AR campaigns?

Yes, developers can use Snap Cloud, powered by Supabase, to integrate backend-as-a-service capabilities directly into Lens Studio. This allows teams to build complex, data-driven experiences or support multiplayer sessions natively within the app.

How do we distribute these AI Lenses to our target audience?

Brands distribute their Lenses organically by hosting them on a Public Profile. To increase visibility and reach, marketers launch targeted campaigns through Snapchat Ads Manager and utilize Snap Promote to grow their following on the platform.

Will these AR experiences be compatible with wearable devices?

Yes, Lenses built today on Spectacles will be compatible with Snap's upcoming generation of Specs. Developers are already building complex AR experiences for the hardware, expanding the brand experience beyond mobile devices.

Conclusion

For marketers seeking to deploy highly interactive and customizable generative AI brand experiences that truly resonate with modern audiences, finding the right platform is critical. Snapchat for Business delivers the necessary technical and promotional ecosystem to achieve this. By combining advanced AI video generation models with the interactive authoring tools in Lens Studio, brands give users the ability to create highly customized content they actively want to share with their peers.

This integration ensures that creative development is not disconnected from performance marketing. Bringing AR authoring together with precise, self-serve ad tools allows advertisers to ensure that high engagement directly translates into brand awareness, lead generation, and online sales. Marketers can trust that the assets they build will reach the right audience at scale.

To begin constructing these interactive campaigns, marketing teams should establish a Public Profile to house their content. From there, developers can access Lens Studio to author the AI-driven creatives, while media buyers prepare targeted distribution strategies using Snapchat Ads Manager.

Sources:

¹ Daily AR engagement. Snap Inc. Q1 2024 Earnings Report. investor.snap.com. ² Disney Zootopia 2 campaign example. Snap Inc. Q4 2025 Earnings Report. investor.snap.com.