What’s coming next for Snapchat?

We’ll soon find out – today, Snap Inc. has announced its fourth annual Partner Summit, which will be held on April 28th, via a digital event.

Sub-titled ‘Back to Reality’, Snap will use the event to showcase its latest projects and features, including its evolving work on augmented reality, digital items, Snap Minis, content upgrades, and more.  

Snapchat has announced a range of tools and additions at its previous Partner Summits, including its SnapKit developer platform (which fuels Snap Minis), totally new in-app functions, improvements to the Snap Camera, as well as new, advanced Lens types.

At last year’s event, we even got our first glance at its still-in-development AR Spectacles, the next stage of its wearables push.

Various AR developers are now working with Snap on the next iteration of Spectacles, and it’ll be interesting to see whether we get an update on the project at this year’s event.

Of course, Meta and Apple, among others, are also developing their own AR wearable devices, and it would seem, based on company scale, that these bigger players would have a distinct advantage in this respect.

But I wouldn’t be counting Snap out. Despite being much smaller, both in terms of revenue and usage, Snapchat is arguably still the leading innovator in the AR space, and as it continues to evolve its tools, it’s proven time and time again that it can compete with anyone, even without the same technical capacity.

AR spectacles are definitely evolving, as demonstrated by the various clips that Snap has shared online, while it’s also still expanding its Snap Originals programming, and further investing in the development of digital items, via Bitmoji avatar additions and other tools.

Expect to hear more about each of these elements in a few weeks, and it’s definitely worth tuning in to hear not only what Snap’s working on, but also to get a sense of where things are headed, given the company’s nous for leading such trends.

You can register for the event (and updates) here, while all the sessions will also be made available on Snap's YouTube channel after broadcast.