Snap has been expanding its AR Lens offerings over the past year with user-made designs, and it even launched Lens Studio to make it simpler for people to create augmented reality effects. Due to the growing number of user-made Lenses, it started featuring them in its carousel in March and introduced a search function for them in July. The platform made it clear way back last year, though, that brands will be able to use AR lenses as a tool for ads, so the program didn't come out of left field.

According to Snap, it selected its first 30 creators for their experience developing quality AR. They also completed a rigorous course on Snap's development process, ad policies and buy models, and other creators hoping to be certified will most likely have to go through the same thing.