Snapchat is adding image-to-video generation, background enhancement, and an AI-powered creator network as it battles plateauing user growth in its top revenue markets. The platform's daily active users declined in the U.S. and Europe during Q1, forcing the company to extract more value from its existing audience through faster, smarter ad tools.
The updates, part of a broader reworking of Snapchat's Ads Manager, give creatives and marketers new ways to produce assets and find collaborators without leaving the platform.
Creative tools that build assets faster
Three additions aim to speed up visual production for the vertical, full-screen Snapchat format. Smart upscale enhances existing images and video to fit the app's dimensions. Image-to-video generation turns still frames into moving clips. A background enhancement feature lets marketers swap or alter the setting of a visual while keeping the product or subject intact. The additions reflect a broader trend toward AI for Creatives, where automated generation and enhancement tools are reshaping production workflows.
An AI-driven creator network
Snapchat also announced the Snap Creator Network, a system designed to match advertisers with influencers using natural-language search. "Advertisers can describe the creators they're looking for - including audience, tone, category, or campaign goals - and Snap Creator Network helps match advertisers with creators that fit their audience and campaign needs," the company said. The tool handles outreach and activation steps, moving brands from idea to execution without manual portfolio reviews. It is scheduled to launch later this year.
AI assistants and open protocol integrations
Inside Snapchat Ads Manager, a new AI chatbot will offer customized campaign setup guidance and flag errors. The assistant suggests additional optimizations, mirroring similar tools already common on competing ad platforms. In a separate move, Snapchat opened its ad platform to third-party AI agents through its MCP (Model Content Protocol) server, giving marketers the freedom to use the AI assistant of their choice to manage Snap campaigns.
Why this matters for creatives
Creatives can now generate video from a single image, match with brand-appropriate influencers by typing a brief description, and use external AI agents to guide Snap ad workflows. With Snapchat's audience headwinds, every campaign must work harder - and tools that compress asset creation and creator discovery into fewer steps can directly lift performance without added headcount. The new features turn conversational prompts into production outputs, which could shorten turnaround times and reduce the back-and-forth that typically delays campaign launches.
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