Is all that Sparkles gold?

Initially, Content Automation empowers designers with the ability to craft and store designs for a variety of marketing materials. An insider tip: During your template compilation, bear in mind the materials often used by your teams for digital and print projects. (Focus on the assets teams utilize most. Receiving feedback about frequently sought-after content can also be beneficial).

We're really excited to be part of the beta program. The opportunity to bring AR to such a huge and engaged audience on Instagram should be a gateway to much wider uptake of the technology with our clients.

Of course, AR has suffered its own challenges. The late-noughties webcam incarnation was a clunky experience, requiring java plugins, ugly tracking markers and providing a single-digit framerate for many experiences. With the advent of powerful GPUs in smartphones, there’s been a land grab for the second wave of powerful, stable AR experiences that could be accessed directly through a phone. Apple brought a world of markerless tracking with their own ARKit, and Google quickly followed suit with ARCore, both of which require dedicated app installs for users to access content. WebAR is seeing developments in the form of the open-source AR.js, but at the time of writing is still tied to marker-based tracking. Google’s WebARonArCore browser-based solution also shows a lot of promise, but remains a developer-only experience for the time being. That leaves creators and brands clamouring for easy to develop, high-quality AR, accessible to anyone, with minimal access requirements.

To date, Spark AR has excelled at creating the kind of fun face adornments that will be familiar to any user of Snapchat lenses. But Facebook’s platform scale represents a more enticing proposition to brands. Can it offer the kind of strides in development potential that will see brands join the AR revolution wholesale? We’re here at F8 to find out.