• by Colin Kirkland , October 23, 2025

Two months after Snapchat released its “Imagine Lens” for paying subscribers, the social media company is bringing the open-prompt AI experience to its 100 million U.S. users for free.

Snap’s Imagine Lens marks the company’s first generative-AI lens dictated by free-form text prompts, pushing past its 2023 Dreams Lens, which uses AI to generate fantastical image-based alternatives to a user’s selfies.

The Imagine Lens provides users with more freedom for image generation due to users’ ability to type in exactly how they want to alter their likeness before sharing an image with friends or to their story.

In its post, Snapchat describes specific ways to utilize the open-form AI lens, including trying on made-up Halloween costumes “before committing to a look” – a strategy that could easily translate to preparing for any holiday or festivity.

However, the options are somewhat endless, with users gaining the ability to prompt the lens to transform them into anything they want, within Snap’s community guidelines.

According to a Snap blog post, users tap into the platform’s Lenses over eight billion times per day. The expanded launch of the Imagine Lens highlights Snapchat’s attempts at relevancy amid user-facing AI products continuously launched and updated by the tech industry’s major players, like Meta and OpenAI.

While Snap’s Imagine Lens stays true to the platform’s identity and appeal, OpenAI’s generative-AI model Sora now allows users to create videos of themselves based on prompt responses. 

According to a Snap spokesperson, the open-prompt’s expanded rollout offers free users a limited number of image generations per day, based on region and other factors.

The Imagine Lens is currently available to all Snapchatters in the U.S., but the company is beginning to expand it to additional international markets starting with Canada, Great Britain and Australia.