Facebook reported Q1 earnings last night and briefly discussed its augmented reality and virtual reality efforts on the call. Following the trend of F8 last month, CEO Mark Zuckerberg spent more time talking about augmented reality than virtual reality. Zuckerberg reiterated that the camera is the focal point of near-term AR and made it sound like Facebook is unashamedly taking a page out of Snapchat’s playbook as a “camera company.” Facebook’s opening up of the camera to third-party developers is a play to establish the company as the platform where AR developers go to create applications, although we believe that Apple and Google’s ownership at the OS layer will enable the richest application development.

Zuckerberg also highlighted computer vision applications beyond the type of facial manipulation that is so popular in social now. He mentioned the ability of the camera in Facebook to recognize objects in the real world and then give the user the ability to interact with them to receive information or even make a purchase. Facebook, like Google and Apple, should have a real play in object recognition, but the interesting thing about this concept is that it expands the use cases of Facebook beyond communication.

The reason that filters and facial masks work well in social is because they’re meant to be shared. Using the camera within Facebook or Instagram to get product information or make purchases is a departure from the core use case of the platform. It will be interesting to see how Facebook’s vision differs from Google’s given their natural play on organizing the world’s information.

While we expect Facebook to keep investing in both platforms, the slight tone shift says that Facebook intends to be a major player in AR despite being late to the game.

Disclaimer: We actively write about the themes in which we invest: artificial intelligence, robotics, virtual reality, and augmented reality. From time to time, we will write about companies that are in our portfolio. Content on this site including opinions on specific themes in technology, market estimates, and estimates and commentary regarding publicly traded or private companies is not intended for use in making investment decisions. We hold no obligation to update any of our projections. We express no warranties about any estimates or opinions we make.