Why so many AI companies’ logos look like…that

Something gastric, er, drastic, is perianally—sorry, perennially—happening with AI logos. Everybody’s been noticing that they all seem to resemble b*ttholes.

You can blame OpenAI and its hexagonal, donut-like emblem. When the company released ChatGPT in 2022, “It quietly set the standard for what ‘serious AI’ is supposed to look like. Circular. Abstract. Untouchable,” Lisa Smith, the global chief design officer of Uncommon Creative Studio, told Fast Company.

Other tech companies followed suit when branding their own large language models:

• By 2023, hexagons—the PG way to characterize some swirling AI logos—were 4.6 times more likely to be used in AI logos than in logos overall, according to Fast Company.
• But the most rectally reminiscent of them all is Anthropic’s asterisk-like logo for Claude, which bears a striking resemblance to Kurt Vonnegut’s infamous illustration of a sphincter in his book Breakfast of Champions.

Why do AI companies keep doing this? From a design perspective, circular imagery is associated with completeness, infinity, and approachability—all things that AI companies likely want to evoke for consumers who may be wary of the technology. Also, AI executives may be too nervous to break the mold now that concentric logos are as associated with AI as the colors red and yellow are with fast food.—ML