Microsoft Teams now has Snapchat’s Lenses for video calls

Microsoft has teamed up with Snap so as to add Snapchat Lenses to Microsoft Groups. Greater than 20 Snapchat Lenses are actually a part of the Microsoft Groups app, together with ones that can place a cat in your head, a sloth in your shoulder, or digital sun shades in your face throughout video calls.

Groups customers don’t must obtain a separate app or add-on, as Microsoft has built-in Snapchat’s AR Lenses straight into the video results part of the Groups shopper. Microsoft has leveraged Snap’s Digital camera Package SDK to deliver these Snapchat Lenses to Groups.

Whereas Microsoft additionally makes use of Snap’s Digital camera Package for its Flip schooling platform so as to add Snapchat Lenses to movies, this new Groups characteristic shall be restricted to Groups for Work customers solely. In the event you’re utilizing the private or schooling model of Groups you received’t have the ability to get entry to those new Snapchat Lenses. You’ll even have to make use of the present “traditional” model of Groups as an alternative of the “New Groups” preview shopper that Microsoft began previewing late final month.

The addition of Snapchat Lenses to Microsoft Groups comes simply months after Snap shut down its Digital camera app that might apply comparable filters in Groups and Zoom. Snap Digital camera initially launched in 2018 and was designed primarily for Twitch streams, however the pandemic-related rise in video calls noticed it develop in recognition and create viral moments like a boss turning right into a potato for a whole Microsoft Groups assembly.

Microsoft can also be engaged on new animated backgrounds for Groups conferences. A brand new dynamic backgrounds characteristic will begin rolling out in Might permitting customers to exchange their background “with a dynamic animation for a extra immersive digital setting.”