Sumi: a mascot that shows what the AI is doing

The question

AI features feel like black boxes, especially to children. The question was whether a mascot could double as the loading state, so that reading, scanning, thinking and listening each get their own visible action, and whether it could do that without feeling like a toy or pretending to be a person.

What it does

• Round 1, Meru the mountain owl: a crest from the mountain that gives the company its name, with big eyes that glow amber when scanning homework. Rejected: the owl is already owned by a well-known learning app.
• Round 2, Sumi the spark: two flames swirl into the letter S, so the mascot is also the monogram. The big flame is the student, the small one is the AI mentor holding them up, and the glow is the AI: brighter when listening, thinking or scanning, dim when offline.
• Round 3, Sumi 2.0: a glowing, jelly-bean body under an S-flame, with soft hands so it can hold things. Seven moods (idle, happy, thinking, listening, scanning, celebrating, resting) map to product states.
• Companion kits: six AI companions (general tutor, science buddy, language coach, wellness, story, quiz master) plus a coding coach, each an outfit with one job: kits change, Sumi does not.
• Growth: only the flame changes, from spark to flicker to flame to blaze, as the learner practises and masters topics.
• Shown in context: app icon, a smart-speaker light ring that borrows the glow (amber listening, slow pulse thinking), a chat thread, teacher loading states, streaks and an offline mode.

What broke, and what is still wrong

• Kid-safe character rules: eyes always have catchlights, never a blank stare. It never pretends to be human, and it says it is a spark. Customise the outside, not the face.
• Left behind on purpose: no fur or plush-toy look (glass and light read as smart, fuzz reads as toy), no owl, and no edgy alter ego: one personality everywhere.

Caveat. This is a design exploration built as interactive SVG components. It has not shipped in a product.