Loook.AI: The World’s First Smart Mirror Platform | An Interview with Dmytro Kornilov
AR Mirrors have been around for a few years and remain a powerful marketing tool, combining the reach of digital advertising with the immersive advantages of in-store experiences.
But what’s the science behind them from an AR developer’s perspective—and why should marketers pay attention? We spoke with Dmytro Kornilov, CEO of ffface.me AR Agency and loook.ai, the world’s first smart mirror platform.
Having collaborated with top global brands such as L’Oreal, Prada Beauty, Valentino Beauty, and Dolce & Gabbana (and many more), Dmytro shared his insights, experiences, and the data that explain why AR Mirrors are transforming retail.
by ffface.me
by ffface.me
What is loook.ai?
loook.ai transforms any digital screen into a smart AR mirror, enabling scalable, immersive retail experiences worldwide. The platform can be installed on existing screens or provided with new ones, with experiences managed remotely through its admin panel. Installation is quick—just a few hours—making it highly scalable.
Over the past two years, FFFACE.ME has created more than 200 AR mirror experiences for leading global brands, driving sales and increasing foot traffic in stores.
⭐Interview Shortcut
Why AR Mirrors
Which brands/campaigns fit best
Creator POV: pros & cons
Favorite projects so far
What is loook.ai
What data does loook.ai give
Typical campaign results
Tech behind loook.ai
Best AR/AI features
Best What do brands/users want?
Mirror vs mobile/social AR
Key to pitching AR Mirrors
Margins, costs, and fees
Why do you think AR Mirrors make sense from a brand perspective, as a marketing solution?
There are a couple of aspects we need to acknowledge to understand this question fully. First is offline marketing.
Offline advertising has changed significantly over the last 100 years. As we began interacting with various advertising formats more frequently, it resulted in “banner blindness”—a protective mechanism our brains developed to avoid being overwhelmed by promotional content.
On the other hand, after the pandemic, people realized they still prefer offline experiences. They don’t want to fully embrace virtual and digital environments. Instead, they want to spend more time offline and shop in physical stores, which means brands can still generate significant conversions through offline channels.
So we have two contrasting facts: the performance of offline and outdoor advertising has declined, yet offline remains a promising communication channel. This is why brands now urgently need to reinvent technology for offline and outdoor advertising—making it more engaging and interesting for their audiences while increasing conversions.
From a brand perspective, AR mirrors make sense because they help restore the effectiveness of outdoor advertising, which is crucial since people continue to spend considerable time in physical environments.
What types of brands do you think are or should be interested in AR Mirrors, for what types of campaigns?
This is an important point because there’s been significant buzz around AR mirrors and one specific use case: virtual try-ons. At some point, marketers believed that virtual try-on of clothing or makeup was the primary use case for AR mirrors, which is incorrect.
The real value of AR mirrors isn’t about virtual try-ons but about attracting attention and enabling various personalized experiences. These could be entertaining experiences or educational ones where customers learn about new products through an engaging process. The notion that mirrors are primarily for virtual try-ons and therefore mainly used by fashion and beauty brands is simply false.
Mirrors can be used in various formats by brands from absolutely every niche that relies on outdoor or offline communication. They bring value that is relevant to any brand’s target audience by creating experiences rather than forcing traditional advertising on them.
For example, huge LED screen-based AR mirrors can be used for standard awareness campaigns, where you turn an outdoor advertising banner of any size into an AR mirror that continuously activates all passersby.
They can be used for retail shopping and advertising, such as installing an AR mirror in a storefront to drive traffic inside the store. They’re effective for in-store activation in competitive environments like shopping malls or duty-free shops, attracting attention to a specific brand’s product shelf.
AR mirrors also work well for pop-ups and events, including influencer gatherings, serving as photo booths that build brand loyalty and create emotional connections through shared special moments and physical takeaways.
They can even be used within monobrand stores as virtual makeup stations or for other activations that create personalized product experiences. These are just examples off the top of my head. I’ve outlined the main use cases, but the key point is that we can find relevant applications at virtually every offline touchpoint that engage the target audience more effectively than standard video screens.
Now let’s take a look at Creator’s or Studio’s POV. What are the biggest risks and advantages of AR Mirrors?
From a creator’s or studio’s perspective, the biggest advantage is the ability to scale AR development business into a much larger global market. When we discussed AR filters, we were talking about multiple brands worldwide with multiple social media accounts, which brought significant business to Creators. With AR mirrors, we’re dealing with the same brands, but they have far more touchpoints than just social media profiles.
For example, Coca-Cola might have one TikTok account per country, but in that same country, they have hundreds of storefronts and outdoor billboards that can be used for interactive smart mirror experiences. This means switching to AR mirror format unlocks a massive market for every creator while allowing them to focus on producing the same type of content as before.
Essentially, Creators can continue producing filters but apply them in a more relevant, novel, and scalable direction. The market is much bigger, the competition is much smaller, and importantly, the hardest part of the AR mirror game is already complete. The proof of concept stage—where pioneers had to prove this tool worked, test various hypotheses, identify optimal equipment, find the best SDKs, and make numerous mistakes—is behind us. Brands were initially cautious to engage because they perceived the instrument as too new.
Now we have so many AR mirror cases from the last two years that every brand understands the tool is very safe to use, can bring predictable results, and they’re no longer afraid to invest. I would say AR mirrors have reached a mature phase, and brands now perceive them as a standard, reliable marketing tool. The opportunity lies in taking advantage of this interest and trust from brands by using existing AR development skills to fulfill this potential.
The biggest challenge, honestly, is simply the change itself.
As Creators and agencies, you’ll need to learn some new aspects about working with physical setups. You’ll also need to adjust your marketing and the positioning of your studio or creator profile. But these aren’t critical challenges—they’re just part of the standard process of long-term business development where you need to pivot and smoothly change direction when new opportunities arise. So again, the main challenge is in your mind—whether you’re ready to change. If you are ready, then now is the right time.
You’ve worked on many AR Mirrors already. Can you share your favorite projects so far?
My favorite projects are always ones where we can clearly see performance results. One standout example was our AR storefront for Kiehl’s in Nolita, New York, where we increased foot traffic by 20%. This success led to an invitation to join L’Oreal’s startup incubation program, and we’re now scaling to dozens of locations globally with Kiehl’s and other L’Oreal brands.
This case was particularly effective because it features an unexpected visual experience—AR storefronts that analyze passersby’s faces and provide a preview of the full Face Analysis experience available only in-store. People intrigued by this teaser would go inside to try the full version. A 20% increase in foot traffic represents a significant result, especially considering the typical monthly sales volume for stores of this caliber. This demonstrates a very strong return on marketing investment.
Another project that comes to mind is our huge LED screen activations for Pepsi and Maybelline at the Gulliver shopping mall in Kyiv.
We developed a smart approach to engage thousands of passersby in a single day by offering them the opportunity to become “big screen heroes”—seeing themselves on a huge display and recording this moment on their phones to share on social media. We’re essentially tapping into people’s desire to be seen while simultaneously delivering brand messages.
I believe this case should inspire creators and agencies because we can apply this concept to any large LED screen globally—from Times Square to Tokyo, Paris, and Mexico City. That’s something I really enjoy as well.
Can you share more about your brand new AR Mirror project, loook.ai? What does your solution provide both to brands and Creators and what issues does it solve?
We created loook.ai to focus exclusively on AR mirror-related information, products, and services. Within loook.ai, we’ve developed a comprehensive solution that provides everything needed to launch AR mirrors globally in just one day. The platform consists of an app that can be installed on any equipment worldwide and an admin panel that controls all smart mirror experiences from a single location.
It also includes detailed instructions for launching the physical component of the experience, with all necessary information about equipment and technical drawings. In essence, loook.ai provides everything required for launching AR mirror experiences except for the AR filter itself.
This is why we’re open to collaborations with various Creators. We don’t see ourselves as competitors but as potential partners. We invite Creators to offer AR mirrors to their clients using loook.ai as their implementation solution, allowing them to focus on what they do best: developing AR filters.
For brands, we provide a one-stop shop. When you work with loook.ai, we deliver all the infrastructure and information needed to launch this product anywhere in the world. We offer various service combinations, ranging from fully turnkey solutions to formats where we only provide the software while clients handle the hardware and even filter development themselves.
We all know clients and marketers love numbers. What type of data can you gather when using loook.ai?
What clients truly value is business performance. Fortunately, we can confidently commit to improving key business KPIs, including sales, foot traffic, as well as secondary metrics like offline and online contacts. Based on our experience, all smart mirror projects have successfully increased these metrics.
Beyond business outcomes, we also collect comprehensive analytics about the experience itself. We measure the number of interactions with AR mirrors and the average number of people per session, as people often interact with mirrors in groups. We track the average time spent with a mirror, showing how long users engage with the experience. For experiences with different modes, we measure interaction depth—specifically how many times users changed modes and which modes or products were most popular.
Additionally, we can implement custom event tracking based on the specific experience type. All analytics are collected in real time, with reports available on daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
And what are the average, or expected results from an AR Mirror experience, depending on campaign type?
When the mirror is positioned in an accessible, visible area where people can clearly see the opportunity to participate—and importantly, where others can observe those currently engaged with it (creating a natural buzz)—we can expect increased sales.
The specific sales increase depends on each touchpoint. Is it a major shopping mall or a busy airport with travel retail? Generally, we can expect at least a 5% increase in sales.
For example, Fendi’s AR mirror activation in an airport showed 43% year-over-year sales growth compared to the non-AR version.
The second use case is AR storefronts, where we install an AR mirror in the storefront to attract people inside the store. For these experiences, if we’re talking about a popular store with good foot traffic and many passersby, we can expect thousands of interactions daily, resulting in at least a 10% increase in foot traffic.
For example, during Kiehl’s AR Storefront activation we experienced a 20% increase in foot traffic.
An important point about AR mirrors: they shouldn’t be considered magic pills that will transform an unpopular location into a popular one.
They won’t solve all problems. Instead, AR mirrors function as catalysts that amplify existing conversion rates. If your existing conversion and traffic are good, AR mirrors will make them excellent. If they’re low, AR mirrors will improve them, but performance will still be relatively low. This is why we recommend AR mirror technology as a booster for top-performing or average-performing locations—and always in places with high foot traffic.
The third use case is influencer events, pop-ups, and events where people are in a festive mood—celebrating, partying, or exploring.
by ffface.me
by ffface.me
For these types of experiences, we shouldn’t expect increased foot traffic or sales. Instead, we can expect growth in product trial. We can especially expect an increase in user-generated content online. If you look at any video report from our AR mirror activations, you’ll see that the first thing people do when interacting with a smart mirror is take out their phone and start recording.
This means that brands will receive—depending on the event size and guest type (whether influencers or general public)—hundreds of thousands of impressions online from user-generated content.
Lastly, consider the performance of AR outdoor billboards, as in our example for Maybelline and Pepsi. In our case, we generated more than 10,000 offline interactions in just one day and more than 10 million impressions online from user-generated content and press mentions.
To sum up, we’re talking about 100% measurable results that drive the most important business metrics—and these are very significant metrics.
by ffface.me
From the technical POV – what solutions does loook.ai utilize (here thinking about hinting to Camera Kit)?
First off, we see loook.ai as a smart mirror platform that architecturally functions as a hub for integrating various AR and AI SDKs. This means loook.ai can work with Snap Camera Kit, 8th Wall, Modiface, and others. We also integrate various AI APIs and SDKs, such as Stable Diffusion, and we’re open to partnerships with SDK and API providers.
loook.ai isn’t a single-engine platform but rather a multi-engine hub that applies different SDKs for various use cases and situations.
We use Camera Kit extensively because it’s one of the most powerful AR engines available today. We’re proud of our partnership with Snapchat and grateful for all the technical capabilities they provide. I can tell all fellow Creators that Snap Camera Kit should be your first choice if you want to build your own smart mirror apps.
So essentially, you’ll continue doing what you already know how to do—building lenses—just applying them in a different context.
What type of AR or AI effects and features work best, and are used most in the Mirror projects you delivered so far?
The majority of use cases people require are simple entertainment: randomizers, photos with heroes, virtual try-ons, and games. All of these can be executed using AR, specifically the Snapchat Engine. Snapchat even works for some specific types of AI transformation effects.
As for AI, even though its potential is huge—particularly for taking photos of people and transforming them with various AIs into different creative photos—the current disadvantage is that it doesn’t allow for a real-time experience. This dramatically changes how people experience it psychologically.
It’s one thing when you approach a mirror and it instantly activates, transforms you, and gives you an emotion. It’s completely different when you need to approach the mirror, take a photo without filters, wait, and only then receive the outcome. Moreover, this outcome is static—not a moving video or interactive experience.
I’ll give you one pro tip which is our secret, but I can share it just for Lenslist. We use AI to create cleaner segmentation in our photo booth projects. On top of the segmentation that Snapchat offers, we apply additional AI tools to make the photos cleaner.
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Tell us what brands and users want to see and experience inside AR Mirrors.
When it comes to what users want to see, first and foremost, they want to experience magic. This is why the experience must start instantly. We aim to avoid requiring any interface interaction to activate the experience.
Second, users crave emotions. They don’t care about technology—they want to be surprised. They want to see something novel, something unusual. And naturally, whatever they see should be beautiful.
Regarding user experience generally, people expect simplicity. That’s why we try to avoid navigation or other interface elements when possible. When we must include them, we provide clear visual tutorials showing how to navigate between different modes. We demonstrate the movements they should make—like waving a hand—and display these actions on screen.
by ffface.me
by ffface.me
As for brands, they expect the same things they do in all communication. They want their creative ideas delivered accurately. They want to see how their products improve consumers’ lives. And they expect clear outcomes from the activation—which is why our previous discussion about performance metrics was so important.
Finally, they want zero risk and hassle. This means before starting an activation, you need to plan how everything will work, from the AR lens and creative concept (which you already know how to handle) to equipment logistics, setup, and software.
How do you think the AR Mirror experience compares to mobile or social AR from the end user perspective?
In one case, you receive a surprising interaction on your mobile phone and then you share it to your socials. And in case of AR mirrors, you receive a surprising creative interaction on the streets and then you also share it to your socials. And yeah, so I could say that they are…
by ffface.me
So in terms of reactions, again we will add screenshots or GIFs to these articles that show people’s reaction. But honestly, all of them are the same. It’s a smiling face, smiling, surprised, excited, happy, curious, all spectrum of positive emotions. And I’ve never seen a single person who was natural or sad about the experience because in general probably people that can give these reactions they just don’t approach the experience.
When drafting a proposal for an AR Mirror, what should one keep in mind or focus on the most? How does it compare to pitching a mobile or social AR experience?
Begin with the context, specifically focusing on the client’s business goals. Clearly restate the situation, for example: “We’re planning an AR mirror for the Adidas pop-up in Los Angeles.”
Next, address the target audience who will visit the event. Are they influencers, sports enthusiasts, or the general public? Based on these parameters, recommend an appropriate experience type: “For this audience and location, we recommend an AR photo booth because visitors will receive personalized takeaways that generate emotional connections with the brand and encourage user-generated content—the optimal goal for these activations.”
Then provide a detailed description of the user flow. This is similar to the mock-ups we create for AR filter development, but instead, you’ll need to show how users interact with the mirror. Integrate these mock-ups directly into AR Mirror visuals for clarity.
Next, list the deliverables—what the client should expect from you. Discuss expectations beforehand. For instance, if they expect only a filter, specify that you’ll deliver the filter mock-ups and development while the client handles equipment and construction. If you’re providing everything, clearly list all deliverables.
Include a budget for your work and a timeline (such as a Gantt diagram) showing when each stage will occur. Your proposal should create a clear picture of exactly what will be created, demonstrating that you’ve thought through all details of the planned activation.
Our typical client presentations are concise—just two or three slides. The first slide covers what we’ll deliver, and the second explains how we’ll deliver it and the cost. You don’t need a lengthy presentation, especially since clients already understand what smart mirrors are. There’s no need for extensive slides about AR history or how AR mirrors became significant.
How does this compare to pitching mobile or social AR? It’s quite similar—you need to be direct and explain how it works, how you’ll implement it correctly, and what performance the client should expect.
What kind of margins can Creators/Studios count on? What are the additional production costs compared to social AR?
First of all, every AR mirror activation includes a standard AR filter as one component. This means you can apply your usual AR filter margin to any mirror project. While I’m not certain about current market rates, you can typically charge between $5,000 to $15,000 for the AR filter alone.
Beyond this, there are additional parts of the experience you can provide and charge for. Remember, an AR filter by itself isn’t enough to create a complete experience. You’ll need AR mirror software—essentially a player for the experience.
You have two options: you can hire us to use our software for your projects, which means you won’t handle the experience organization yourself (though you won’t earn from this part). Alternatively, you can develop your own software and set your own pricing. You might build a custom one-off solution.
For example, you could say, “I’ll build this smart mirror application specifically for your needs” and charge $5,000-$10,000, depending on the client and their requirements. Some clients might request specialized features that affect pricing. At loook.ai, we’ve taken a different approach—we’ve built a comprehensive, sophisticated application and are now implementing a subscription model.
We cannot disclose the exact numbers that we charge within our subscription model, but typically our subscription fee is equivalent to the amount of management hours we invest in each specific activation. This is a second way you can earn fees—by using AR mirror software if you’ve developed it. The third component is equipment purchase or rental. You can definitely earn from this as well. Typically, one set of equipment for an AR mirror activation costs around $5,000-$6,000.
You can either offer your client the option to purchase it directly, or you can purchase it yourself once and then rent it out. In this case, after your third or fourth activation, you’ll start earning. How much should you charge for renting $6,000 worth of equipment? It varies—some might charge $1,000, others $2,000 or $3,000, depending on the rental period.
Lastly, one of the most costly parts of an AR mirror project is construction—building the booth that houses the equipment. This element is essential because the booth, equipment packaging, or decoration transforms ordinary equipment into a mysterious, magical box that delivers an enchanting experience. Both you and your clients should invest in building this booth, but fortunately, in about 90% of cases, this work is managed by their retail teams or event agencies.
In terms of ballpark figures, I would say clients are prepared to invest in mirror projects starting from $15,000 and up to much higher amounts. The final budget depends on the activation period—some clients install mirrors for a year and change lenses multiple times throughout, allowing you to earn from lens development repeatedly.
The bottom line is that clients are already comfortable with these budgets, starting from $15,000 and up. Regardless of your role in the mirror project, you’ll still develop AR lenses under your standard conditions. This makes it beneficial either way.
I’m delighted to share this information with Lenslist and inspire Creators and agencies because I don’t view this as competition. Rather, I see it as a new market we should grow together. Eventually, when this market matures, it will be so expansive that opportunities will far outnumber vendors. I encourage you to pursue these projects for clients—either independently or with us. Thank you.
A huge thank you goes to Dmytro Kornilov for sharing his expertise and vision, and for giving us a glimpse into the future of immersive brand experiences. 👏
Our conversation made it clear that AR Mirrors are more than a passing trend. They’re a powerful bridge between digital innovation and offline engagement, with proven impact on sales, brand visibility, and customer experience.
By breaking down the technology, business models, and creative opportunities behind loook.ai, Dmytro showed why this platform is set to reshape retail on a global scale. 🌍
