Snapchat rolls out ‘Topic Chats’ for users to react, discuss and engage publicly on trends

Snapchat is taking a significant step beyond one-on-one and friends-only communication by rolling out a new public “Topic Chats” feature aimed at fostering wider, community-driven conversations.

Founded on the idea of ephemeral snaps and private conversations, Snapchat has largely stayed in the domain of one’s inner social circle. Now, as the social media landscape continues to embrace public discourse and trend-driven chatrooms, Snapchat is seeking a place in that space. According to the company’s announcement and a post from its newsroom, Topic Chats allow users to dive into sidelong conversations around events, culture, sports or trending shows – everything from Formula 1 to reality-TV favorites like Below Deck.

A key concern for Snapchat has been how to maintain user privacy while enabling more public-facing communications. For Topic Chats, the company says individual user profiles will remain effectively shielded from non-friends: while display names will be visible alongside messages, outsiders cannot click through to the full profile or search via username.

Messages posted in Topic Chats still must comply with Snapchat’s Community Guidelines, and the company says it will rely on large language model (LLM) techniques along with other safety-systems to moderate the discussions.

The feature also surfaces related short-form videos from Snapchat’s TikTok-style platform area, Spotlight, meaning Topic Chats don’t just sit as text-only rooms but are integrated into the broader content ecosystem.

Users will see what Topic Chats their friends have joined – a design choice meant to spark serendipitous discovery, offering common ground via “what our friends are talking about” rather than cold-entry public forums.

Initially, the rollout will cover users in the U.S., Canada and New Zealand – appearing in chat shortcuts, search, stories and spotlight windows. A yellow “Join the Chat” banner will serve as the entry point.

Importantly, messages posted within these Topic Chats will be retained for up to five years, a departure from Snapchat’s original ethos of ephemeral chat and story content.

What this shift signals is Snapchat’s bid to bridge private and public social-experiences: keeping core privacy for friend-to-friend exchanges, while carving out space for open-ended thematic discussions. The timing is apt – as platforms look to keep users inside their ecosystems by enabling communal interaction, rather than sending them off to external forums. For Snapchat, whose growth has flagged in some markets, Topic Chats offers another lever to boost engagement, keep users inside the app longer and widen the social graph beyond direct friendships.

As always with public chat features, moderation and safety will be critical. The move to deploy LLM-based tools is interesting; the success will depend on how effectively Snapchat can manage misuse while preserving the freedom that makes public chats appealing. If it strikes the right balance, Topic Chats could become a vibrant new layer in Snapchat’s social architecture – a lively digital agora for its younger, mobile-first user base.

Meta-level, this launch reflects a broader trend: social apps that began as private-message platforms are incrementally embracing public discourse, blending the intimacy of friends-only with the dynamism of community talk. Snapchat’s entry may spur competitors to ramp up similar features, and users will be watching how the balance of privacy, discoverability and moderation plays out.