Why is the sparkle icon a risky choice for AI features?

Back in early 2023, the sparkle emoji was quickly becoming the way to say "AI lives here." From Google's Bard to Microsoft's Office and beyond, the sparkle and its derivatives came to represent generative AI features: "tap this button for AI-powered images, text, and more." A year and a half later, Salesforce was going hard on the sparkles too. So why would I be wary of hopping on the sparkle train?

First, look at what happened to the Save icon. Most apps aligned on a floppy disc to let people save their work. But floppy discs phased out of existence, and so did the need to explicitly save files once auto-saving became widespread. AI is likely headed down a similar path. As it permeates more apps, how long will its capabilities feel "magical" before they're just normal, expected functionality? An icon built on novelty has a short shelf life.

I ran into this firsthand. When iterating on the design of Ask LukeW, we explored using the sparkle icon to let people generate suggested questions. Once we realized how useful those questions were, we started generating them by default with no explicit user action required, and moved them into people's gaze path so they wouldn't be missed. Bye-bye sparkle icon.

Second, the sparkle mostly spread because big company design teams look at what other big companies are doing and copy it. That's how you end up with the same icon everywhere, which doesn't mean it's the best fit. And framing AI as "magic" arguably makes these systems feel even more like black boxes. In addition, icons are less universal than we think. Sparkles already mean other things (Amazon uses them for its "Inspire" shopping feed), and when Amazon launched in India, people thought the search icon was a ping pong paddle.

Third, a sparkle doesn't earn attention just by being there. In products crowded with features, the brightly colored AI icon sits right alongside search, shopping, tools, games, and more, and the effect is that people tune it all out.

So instead of leaning on a trendy symbol, focus on making the experience obvious and seamless. If an AI capability is genuinely useful, build it right into the flow where people need it. After all... obvious always wins.