F8 2018: Augmented Reality Comes to Messenger

Today at F8, we announced what’s coming next to the Messenger platform: the ability for brands to incorporate augmented reality into their Messenger experiences.

With this launch, businesses large and small can leverage the Camera Effects Platform to easily integrate AR into their Messenger experience. This brings the virtual and physical worlds one step closer together by embedding branded AR camera effects into a business' bot to help drive awareness, consideration or purchases.

Blending AR effects and messaging solves a real problem for people shopping online who might want to visualize a product or get input from family and friends before buying it. This feature—launching first in closed beta—will allow people interacting with your business in Messenger to open the camera, which will be pre-populated with filters and AR affects specific to your brand, and take a photo or record a video that incorporates the camera effects. People will have the option to save, share or add the content to a story on Messenger or Facebook. This enables people to get valuable, instant feedback about purchases, customizations and more, without ever having to set foot in a store.

This feature is the latest addition to our AR Studio, which powers expressive and immersive experiences across our family of apps. At launch, Sephora, Nike, ASUS and KIA will be launching AR effects for their Messenger experiences.