Why AI Suddenly Sparkles

A year ago, AI seemed like a dark shadow on the horizon. It was coming to say disturbing things to reporters, take artistic jobs and also, if we’re unlucky, destroy the world.

Fast forward to the summer of 2024, and brands seemed to have aligned on a general set of boundaries for AI. It’s an add-on to a subscription that takes notes, summarizes ideas and generates writing. Most importantly, it’s represented by a sparkle.

Notion AI

Google Gemini

Zoom AI

Why a sparkle?

AI could be symbolized by a lot of things: robots, digital assistants, or talk bubbles, for example. A sparkle is a relatively abstract symbol for AI, conveying the idea of mystery, magic and lightheartedness. This territory certainly helps combat some of the fear or anxiety around AI, without overpromising the accuracy of what it’s going to do. You may ask a sparkle to help you with something, but it’s not pretending to be a credentialed expert.

A symbol of a whole category, not just a brand

In branding, we think about semiotics (signs and symbols) on two different levels. There is the individual brand level, but also the category level. At a brand level, you want to be distinct, but you also want to tick the boxes of your category so people have an immediate knowledge of what your product is. As a category, AI has settled on the idea of a shared symbol. This helps act as a shortcut to meaning making, so that one company that mainstreams AI is doing a favor for peers and competitors alike. As we all gain comfort and familiarity with AI, we need help recognizing it and understand its offerings and guardrails across experiences.

Distinguishing a shared symbol

Looking at the examples above, there is a fair degree of variation in how brands approach it. While they all nod to the sparkle and use it as a wayfinding tool in their digital experience, they still bring their own spin to it.

Notion plays into its system of hand-drawn imagery to place the star as a symbol on a laptop, and expand on it with other doodles of sparkles.

Google’s Gemini gives it a distinct name, which feels firmly aimed at younger generations, as one of many bands jumping on the astrology bandwagon. Gemini plays on the idea of a twin, which is also a concept that has been fully mainstreamed in digital engineering (the digital twin). A rebrand from its original name (Bard), it further defines its metaphor as “supercharging” the processes you already do yourself.

Zoom adds a glassy, cool-colored design system around AI, making it feel ethereal and easy-breezy, but sticks with the idea of a companion or assistant.

Outliers

Anthropic’s Claude AI uses a starburst-like asterisk as its icon, but feels a bit different than the others. It focuses more on the idea of a person, which is how AI was portrayed this time last year. I have no idea if it was inspired by the song in the musical Hair, but it brings it to mind for me: “He’s a genius genius. I believe in God, and I believe that God, believes in Claude, that’s him.”

It could be that companies that sell AI in and of itself need further differentation than preexisting software companies who just add it as a plus-up. (Speaking of, can subscription-weary people even shell out more cash for an AI add-on?)

What’s next?

Now that many brands out there are investing in AI, I’m assuming that every corner of meaning will be plundered to make these personas both unique but familiar, and we’re just at the beginning of seeing how that plays out.

So, will the sparkle be here for the long run? My take is that the sparkle is kind of like adding “digital” or “social” before a platform in the early 2010s. It was necessary to mainstream it, but ultimately the presence of AI will get quieter and quieter.

And in my opinion, I think it should. If AI is to be truly transformative in our lives, shouldn’t it be essentially invisible?

For now, it’s a ripe playground for brand creators who want to weigh the benefits of following convention, or creating something new.