In a bid to enhance online safety, the company said users aged 13 to 15 will soon be able to create, save and display Stories and Spotlight videos on a dedicated profile that can only be viewed by friends who have mutually accepted each other.

Their content will no longer be distributed to people outside their friends list through Spotlight.

Previously, teenagers under 16 could post videos to Spotlight, Snapchat’s short-form video feature, but the content was not linked to their profiles.

While this prevented direct contact from strangers, the posts could still be viewed by a wider audience.

Under the new system, younger teens will share content in a more private environment. Snapchat will also remove engagement metrics such as favourite counts from profiles belonging to users in this age group.

The company said the changes are designed to help teenagers express themselves creatively without the pressure that usually comes with public posting and visible performance metrics.

Snapchat outlined different levels of access based on age. Users between 13 and 15 will be limited to sharing content with mutual friends.

Those aged 16 and 17 can choose to share content more broadly, but distribution will remain restricted to friends, followers and users with mutual connections.

Adults aged 18 and above will still have full access to public profiles and wider content distribution tools.

Alongside the latest changes, Snapchat said it will maintain several existing protections for users under 16.

The platform blocks messages from people teens have not added as friends or saved in their contacts. It also limits friend requests from people users may not know and displays warning messages when it detects a teenager may be chatting with a stranger.

The company says it will continually moderate public content before recommending it to larger audiences and take action against accounts that attempt to promote inappropriate material to teenagers.

Parents will also be able to monitor aspects of their children’s activity through Snapchat’s Family Centre.

The feature allows parents and caregivers to view their teenager’s friends list, see who they have communicated with recently, apply content restrictions, disable access to the My AI chatbot, share location information and report accounts they find concerning.

The update follows a trend across social media platforms, with services such as Instagram launching additional protections and specialised account settings for younger users.

Snap’s latest feature also comes as the company focuses on mitigating the impact of social media on young people.

Earlier this year, Snap settled a lawsuit that accused it of contributing to social media addiction and is still defending similar cases in courts across the United States.

Speaking to CNBC, Snap chief executive officer, Evan Spiegel, said Snapchat has a “positive impact” on users because it helps people stay connected with friends.

He argued that the platform should not be grouped together with competitors such as TikTok and Instagram.

The new feature will strengthen the company’s focus on artificial intelligence and conversational marketing, building on Sponsored Snaps, the adverts already placed in users’ Chat inboxes.

Until now, those ads were one-way messages, but with this update, users can reply, ask questions and receive recommendations from AI agents representing brands.

Snap said the aim is to place advertising inside spaces where people already talk and interact, rather than sending them elsewhere.

Ajit Mohan, chief business officer at Snap Inc., said: “Conversation is becoming the most valuable real estate in advertising. AI is accelerating that shift, turning chat into the place where people discover products, ask questions, and make decisions in real time. 

“The real opportunity isn’t just putting ads into those environments, it’s designing formats that feel native to how people already talk.”

The company said the format gives advertisers access to Snapchat’s nearly one billion monthly active users. Brands can bring their own AI tools onto the platform and use them to drive awareness, app installs and purchases.

Snapchat also shared new usage figures to support the launch, saying users sent more than 950 billion chats during the first quarter of 2026 alone. The company added that more than half a billion users have messaged its My AI chatbot since it launched in 2023.

According to Snap, 85% of users regularly use the Chat feed. It also said 57% of teenage users send messages daily, while four in ten do so several times a day.

The company further noted that Sponsored Snaps already deliver 22% more conversions with nearly 20% lower cost per action. It added that full-screen ad views generate twice as many conversions compared with some other ad placements.

Snapchat is starting the new product with an alpha launch alongside credit reporting and data firm Experian.

Steve Hartmann, head of Integrated Marketing at Experian, said: “This partnership reflects our commitment to meeting consumers where they are, with trusted insights that empower smarter financial decisions.

“AI Sponsored Snaps delivers a natural, conversational experience, allowing Snapchatters to connect with Experian about credit and money management right where they already feel comfortable. 

“We’re making financial education more accessible and intuitive by becoming part of their everyday conversations.”

The probe, announced on Thursday, falls under the Digital Services Act, which requires large platforms to protect against harmful and illegal content or face heavy penalties.

EU officials say they are investigating how the app handles risks such as child grooming, exposure to drugs and other illegal goods, and weak account protections for younger users.

“From grooming ⁠and exposure to illegal products to account settings that undermine minors’ safety, Snapchat appears to have overlooked that the Digital Services Act demands high safety standards for all users,” EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said in a statement.

At the centre of the case is whether Snapchat has put in place enough precautions to stop adults from contacting or exploiting minors. Regulators are also examining how easily illegal goods such as drugs, vapes and alcohol can be promoted or sold through the platform.

The European Commission said Snapchat’s content moderation tools may not be strong enough to prevent such activity.

It also spoke about the company’s age verification system, which largely relies on users declaring their own age, as well as default settings that could leave younger users exposed.

Another issue under review is the platform’s design, including features regulators describe as “dark patterns”, which may make it harder for users to report problems or understand privacy settings.

Snapchat, owned by Snap Inc., said it is working with regulators and reviewing its systems to ensure child safety and general protection.

“We have fully cooperated with the Commission to date – engaging proactively, transparently and working in good faith to meet the DSA’s high safety standards – and we will continue to do so throughout this ‌investigation,” a spokesperson said.

The Commission has also taken over an earlier investigation by Dutch authorities into the alleged sale of vapes to minors on the platform.

Snapchat has about 97 million monthly users across the EU, most of them teenagers and young adults. Regulators believe this makes the platform particularly vulnerable to abuse, including cases where adults pose as minors to target younger users.

Under the Digital Services Act, companies found in breach can be fined up to 6% of their global annual revenue. With Snap reporting about $5.2 billion in revenue last year, any penalty could run into hundreds of millions of dollars.

Generally, investigations regarding child safety and other aspects are already underway into TikTok, Meta Platforms, and AliExpress, among others, as regulators step up enforcement of the law, hence, this isn’t limited to Snapchat.

Brussels has made known it wants the Digital Services Act to set the standard for online safety, especially when it comes to protecting children.

This immediately sent the company’s shares up by 16% after trading hours.

Under the one-year deal, paid in cash and equity, Perplexity’s AI-powered “answer engine” will become part of Snapchat’s chat interface, letting users ask questions and receive verified, real-time responses without leaving the app. 

Revenue contributions from the partnership are expected to begin in 2026.

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel confirmed that the new feature will be ad-free. “Perplexity AI will control the responses from their chatbot inside of Snapchat. So, we won’t be selling advertising against the Perplexity responses,” he said.

The collaboration will enable Snap to compete more aggressively with social media giants like TikTok and Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, both of which have long topped the advertising market. 

Analysts see mutual benefits as Perplexity gains exposure among younger audiences, while Snap strengthens user engagement within its platform.

“Perplexity needs a way to build its profile among young consumers, and Snap needs an AI chat partner that will allow its users to stay engaged without leaving its app,” said Max Willens, principal analyst at Emarketer.

Snap’s own AI tool, “My AI,” will be available, but users will now have the option to interact with Perplexity’s chatbot instead. Spiegel described the initiative as part of Snap’s goal to make artificial intelligence “more personal, social, and fun.” He also noted that more third-party AI integrations could follow.

The announcement came alongside Snap’s third-quarter earnings, which showed a 10% year-on-year revenue increase to $1.51 billion, beating analyst expectations of $1.49 billion, according to LSEG data. 

The company’s net loss narrowed to $104 million, down from $153 million a year earlier, while daily active users climbed 8% to 477 million globally.

Snap’s focus on direct-response advertising continued to pay off, with that segment rising 8% during the quarter. Growth was driven by demand for its “Pixel Purchase” and “App Purchase” tools, which help businesses reach users more likely to complete transactions.

Still, the company warned of possible challenges in the coming quarter. Snap expects daily active users could decline slightly due to new regulatory changes, including Australia’s Social Media Minimum Age Bill, which takes effect in December and will tighten access for younger users.

For the final quarter of 2025, Snap projected revenue between $1.68 billion and $1.71 billion, broadly in line with market expectations of $1.69 billion.

The outage, which originated from AWS’s US-EAST-1 region, began in the early hours of Monday and quickly spread beyond the United States, affecting Europe, Asia, and Africa. 

According to AWS’s own status dashboard, multiple services are currently “impacted” due to “increased error rates and latencies,” with engineers “actively engaged and working to both mitigate the issue and understand root cause.”

For users, the impact has been immediate and widespread. Alexa devices have gone silent, unable to respond to voice commands or execute daily routines like alarms and reminders. 

Developers and businesses using AWS’s cloud network, from Airtable to Perplexity AI and the McDonald’s app, have also been hit. Even high-traffic entertainment platforms like Fortnite, Roblox, and Rainbow Six Siege are offline.

Downdetector, a platform that tracks service disruptions, has logged over 2,000 incident reports in the U.S. alone since the outage began. On Reddit and X (formerly Twitter), frustrated users across time zones have shared screenshots of failed connections and frozen dashboards.

“Perplexity is down right now,” confirmed Aravind Srinivas, CEO of Perplexity, in a post on X. “The root cause is an AWS issue. We’re working on resolving it.”

Amazon, in its latest public update at 3:51 a.m. ET, noted that it would provide further information every 45 minutes “or sooner if we have additional information to share.” However, at the time of writing, there is still no estimated timeline for full restoration.

This isn’t the first time AWS’s US-EAST-1 region has been the source of widespread disruption. Similar outages in December 2021, November 2020, and June 2023 took down high-profile platforms including Netflix, Disney+, Slack, Zoom, and Twitch. 

Each incident revealed an issue across the tech industry, that a large portion of the global internet depends heavily on a single cloud provider’s regional infrastructure.

The current outage appears to have hit both consumer-facing apps and backend systems, including AWS’s own Support Center and Support API, which organisations rely on for case creation and troubleshooting.

While AWS has reiterated that engineers are investigating the problem, the lack of transparency about the specific cause of the outage is driving industry-wide anxiety. Many are now revisiting familiar cases of how much centralisation is too much when the internet’s backbone depends on just a handful of companies.

For now, millions of users are in a holding pattern, waiting, refreshing, and hoping their devices come back online soon.

Brussels is pressing these platforms, classified as Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) due to their reach of over 45 million EU users, to prove that they are taking real steps to shield children from illegal and harmful content. This includes exposure to drugs, vaping products, and material that promotes eating disorders.

The EU request centres on the companies’ age verification tools and internal measures for restricting harmful material regarding child safety. Officials also want explanations on how their algorithms handle potentially addictive recommendation systems and how app stores manage access to gambling, sexual content, and so-called “nudify” applications.

“Today, alongside national authorities in the member states, we are assessing whether the measures taken so far by the platforms are indeed protecting children,” said EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen.

The case is part of an enforcement under the DSA, the EU’s digital law designed to make tech giants more accountable for content circulating on their platforms. The Commission has issued formal Requests for Information (RFIs), a step that could lead to full investigations and fines reaching up to 6% of global turnover if breaches are confirmed.

Beyond enforcement, the EU is exploring policy changes, including setting a bloc-wide “digital age of majority” that could restrict minors’ access to certain online services, an idea inspired by Australia’s under-16 social media ban.

In the United States, several states such as Utah and Arkansas now require parental consent for minors to use social media. Meanwhile, within Europe, Denmark is pushing for a national social media ban for users under 15, while France and Spain have publicly backed tighter digital age limits.

The EU child safety investigation follows its child protection guidelines published in July 2025, which laid out clearer expectations for compliance with the DSA.

Until now, messages were automatically deleted either 24 hours after being viewed by everyone in a chat or 31 days after being sent. With Infinite Retention, users can choose which conversations to preserve, and all participants are notified whenever the setting is activated.

The update also brings “Group Streaks,” enabling multiple friends to contribute to a shared streak. Previously, streaks were limited to one-on-one interactions, requiring daily exchanges between two people. 

Group Streaks continue as long as most members participate, and if a streak is broken, it can be restored within a week. “We’ve often heard from our community that Snapchatters want to save their chats forever and wish they could build streaks with their favourite groups,” the company said in a statement.

Infinite Retention can be toggled on or off for each chat, and both parties receive notifications when the feature is enabled or disabled. This ensures users maintain control over which conversations remain permanent while keeping other interactions ephemeral.

Snapchat originally built its reputation on disappearing messages, but this update aligns the platform more closely with traditional messaging apps like WhatsApp and iMessage. 

The change comes when competition from TikTok, Instagram Threads, and Discord is increasing, as Snap aims to boost engagement and time spent in chats, a key metric for advertisers.

Via Infinite Retention, Snapchat is now joining a trend in social apps, offering users flexibility in how they communicate, blending permanent and ephemeral messaging. Signal and Telegram have long provided disappearing messages with optional permanence, and Snapchat’s latest features bring it firmly into this hybrid messaging space.

The tool is exclusive to Snapchat+ Platinum and Lens+ members.

Unlike earlier effects, Imagine Lens is the first within the app that works with fully open prompts. Users can type instructions ranging from casual edits to more complex creations, such as “turn me into an alien” or “create an image of a grumpy cat.” 

The Lens also comes with preset options, including “Turn me into a four to five panel comic where something unexpected but heroic happens” and “Make this person skydive.”

Subscribers can find the tool at the front of the Lens Carousel or in the Exclusive section. After choosing it, they can tap the caption bar to enter or refine a prompt. The subscription costs $15.99 a month for Platinum and $8.99 for Lens+.

This release follows a series of product updates as Snap pushes deeper into artificial intelligence and augmented reality. In recent months, the company introduced its first video-based generative Lenses and launched Lens Studio apps for iOS and the web, allowing creators to design AR features more easily.

Commenting on the launch, Snap said: “With the Imagine Lens, Snapchatters can create, edit, and recreate Snaps simply by entering their own prompts, then seamlessly share them with friends, post to their Story, or outside of Snapchat.”

More than 400 million users have already experimented with generative tools on Snapchat, producing over four billion creations, according to the company. Imagine Lens is Snap’s strategy to strengthen its drive in immersive media while offering premium features to subscribers.

Shares fell over 16% in after-hours trading on Tuesday, the worst in more than twelve months.

The problem, now resolved, allowed certain ads to run at far lower prices than intended, affecting revenue and unsettling advertisers. “The digital ad tailwinds that propelled Meta and Reddit to blowout quarters turned into a light breeze for Snap,” said eMarketer principal analyst Jasmine Enberg. “There is little room for mistakes.”

Meta reported a 22% surge in ad revenue to $47.5 billion in the same period, while Reddit’s jumped 84% to $465 million. By contrast, Snap’s ad revenue grew just 4%, stressing its struggle to match competitors that offer greater scale and more precise targeting.

Snap said Ramadan’s timing influenced ad spend patterns in key markets, and the end of the U.S. “de minimis” duty-free import exemption prompted some Chinese advertisers to cut budgets. April saw a 1% drop in ad revenue, before partial recovery in May.

Chief Financial Officer Derek Andersen noted that June saw a wider rollout of Sponsored Snaps, short video ads appearing in user inboxes, across the United States and other markets. The company claims this is delivering “more user actions and deeper engagement” with ad content.

Revenue for the quarter ended 30 June came in at $1.34 billion, up 8.7% year-on-year and in line with expectations, but slower than the double-digit growth of the past five quarters. Net loss widened to $263 million from $249 million a year earlier. Average revenue per user fell short at $2.87 versus the $2.90 analysts had forecast.

Small and medium-sized businesses drove most of the advertising profits, while its subscription service Snapchat+ continued to expand, with a 42% rise in paying users to nearly 16 million. Daily active users increased 9% to 469 million, slightly above market estimates.

Snap forecasts third-quarter revenue between $1.48 billion and $1.51 billion, matching analyst consensus. The company is also restructuring engineering teams, with Ajit Mohan now heading ad technology.

Beyond its core platform, Snap is pushing into augmented reality hardware, aiming to launch its first standalone AR glasses in 2026. The device is intended to be lighter and more functional than existing products, with ambitions to beat Meta to market.

Sponsored AI Lenses, powered by Snap’s proprietary Generative AI technology, brings a fresh, captivating way for brands to connect with users. 

This new ad format taps into Snapchat’s playful nature and also leverages the prospect of artificial intelligence to create unique, interactive experiences.

These AI-driven Lenses allow Snapchatters to see themselves in a range of exciting, often unexpected scenarios. Users can transform their appearance, whether it’s trying on ’90s hairstyles, stepping into a Wild West setting, or modelling the latest fashion trends. 

The magic happens when users snap a selfie, allowing the AI to integrate their image into one of these pre-designed scenes, offering up to 10 different experiences in one Lens.

The introduction of Sponsored AI Lenses is a commendable one for Snapchat, adding creativity to its advertising suite. Traditional sponsored lenses have been a feature of the platform for years, but this new AI-powered version takes it a step further by eliminating the need for complex 3D or VFX designs. 

Instead, advertisers can now leverage AI-generated templates, drastically cutting down production times while enhancing the creative possibilities.

One of the key advantages of this new ad format is its ability to drive deeper engagement. Snap’s data suggests that users spend more time interacting with Sponsored AI Lenses compared to regular lenses. 

In fact, brands like Uber and Tinder have already capitalised on this, using the AI Lenses to offer their users fun, personalised experiences. Uber’s “My Thanksgiving Vibe” Lens and Tinder’s “My 2025 Dating Vibe” Lens both show great engagement, with users spending more time with the brand than they typically would with standard ads.

Snapchat has continually worked to refine its generative AI technology over the last couple of years, making it faster and more efficient for advertisers to produce high-quality content. As the platform moves towards more AI-driven solutions, brands are finding new ways to create buzz and improve their storytelling.

The new format also offers brands a chance to access even more visibility. By placing these Sponsored AI Lenses at the forefront of the app’s Camera, brands can enjoy an estimated 25-45% more impressions in just a single day.

With over 300 million Snapchatters engaging with augmented reality every day, the Sponsored AI Lenses offer a powerful tool for brands to reach their audience in a meaningful way.