Many Microsoft products already incorporate AI capabilities, and the popular keyboard app SwiftKey hasn’t been immune to this phenomenon. The keyboard first teased AI-based image-generation capabilitiesback in September. Microsoft has since rebrandedBing Image CreatorintoImage Creator from Designerwhile also unleashingMicrosoft Copilot. In the meantime, the company also announced a partnership with Snap to offer AR-based filters and lenses directly within the keyboard app. This feature is now getting another announcement from SwiftKey, along with some changes to how these AR lenses are accessed.
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These AR-based lenses are available right away on both the iOS and Android versions of SwiftKey, the company said on X. you may access them by tapping the GIF tab on the keyboard followed by the camera icon to open the viewfinder. When you’re in, you will then find two options on either side of the camera shutter, with the left option letting you customize the background while the other one provides a horizontal collection of lenses to pick from.
There’s also a button to switch between the front and back cameras, which is nice if you want to try out an AR filter on your pet, for example. Pressing and holding the shutter lets you create a video/GIF, while a single tap captures a still image.
Based on the brief time I spent with the new version of the SwiftKey keyboard, the experience is fairly consistent across Android and iOS. The images or GIFs you’ve captured using the AR lenses will appear in the grid for easy access in the future. It is also possible to delete them right from the keyboard.
It’s worth noting that the way AR lenses are accessed here differs somewhat from Swiftkey’s original introduction of the functionality last year, as you’re able to see in the video below.
At this time, there’s no way to disable these AR lenses from appearing within the GIF tab on the keyboard. So if you don’t want SwiftKey to have access to your phone’s camera or microphone, make sure you have another look at the app’s permissions from Settings > Apps > Microsoft SwiftKey Keyboard > Permissions on yourAndroid phone.
One of the primary reasons for SwiftKey to be #2 on our list of thebest keyboard appsis due to the amount of features it provides. There’s even a Copilot icon on the left of the keyboard that lets you draft emails and generate images with a simple prompt. But a brief look at the responses to SwiftKey’s announcement of AR lenses on X/Twitter suggests that not everybody is pleased with this particular addition.
