Notes on AI: where it is avoidable and where it isn't in 2026

As those of you who've been with us a while know, both myself personally and PULP Fragrance have been and remain quite anti-AI. In the FAQ I've had a statement for a long while which accurately sums up my view: it's intellectually, spiritually, and environmentally damaging in ways we're still not even fully aware of yet and I find the current AI landscape abhorrent, with the worst examples of humanity holding the reins of this tech and sacrificing all our futures at the altar of the almighty dollar. I still stand by that view.

I also had said in that statement that neither PULP nor I use gen AI/LLMs in any way, except in cases where it is impossible to avoid and still function as a business, with the example given of being forced to interact with a Shopify LLM tool as their first tier of customer service before getting triaged and sent to a human agent. This is still true. And, at the same time, it is important to continue to update where and how AI tech is integrated into platforms and tools that we use. That is also ever-changing, and it can be very hard to keep up with, while also juggling all the other facets of business and life. 

On balance, we/I do still avoid most AI. And we're also seeing more and more that the tools and platforms we've relied on for years have become increasingly AI-integrated or even AI-forward. 

It's becoming so much harder to not end up using it by default or accident. And, compared to when I initially wrote the FAQ statement against AI, there are more places now where we just have to accept a few lesser evils in order to still function and stay in business. There's no longer a clear-cut 'just use this tool, not that one' delineation & that trend shows no signs of slowing.

And to be clear: I hate this. I hate not being able to turn it off in most places. I also rely for shelter and food on the income generated from an ecommerce site, so I can't totally eschew all AI anymore and still manage to eat and live. I can't be a total anti-AI purist and modern Luddite, as much as I might wish I could. 

Is that capitulation to the Machine, to Empire, to forces that want to reshape our lives and world in inhuman ways? Maybe. And yet, "pick your battles" has long been an aphorism for good reason. No one person can win every battle or come down on the right side of every facet of every issue. Life's so, so much messier and more complicated than that.

So, where are we using tools that may incorporate or are based on AI/LLM's/Neural networks:

• Shopify:
  • Shopify as a company has a clear pro-AI stance and is even currently pushing "Agentic" sales channels, automatically adding shops to things like ChatGPT in-platform shopping by default. Luckily we were able to find the setting for it and turn that off, but many people may not even be aware their shop is automatically signed up for this. (And I have little faith that opt-out choice may not go away at anytime.) Even their helper AI bot, Sidekick, is being integrated more into the basic search that the backend uses to pull up customers or orders. We've turned off memory in Sidekick, so it is not retaining and training on data from those searches at least, but this is only going to get more and more grafted onto the basic functions of the platform. Generating even the crucial sales reports for accountant use is often now tied to AI-based logic that generates conditional language to pull the data, so that is one place we have not been able to fully sidestep the AI integrations. 
  • Alternatives are being explored, but given that Shopify and I are both in Canada - plus the poor relations across the border with the current US administration - I can't yet risk moving away from a Canada-based ecomm platform. Maybe in the future, but while there is a chance that a US based ecomm service could be disabled from connecting to my Canadian bank at the whim of a no-notice executive order on international trade or banking, locking up all my income across a border, it's too big to chance it. So, I just have to dodge as many AI tools in Shopify as I can for now, & hope that a viable alternative comes into place, one way or another.
    
• Canva:
  • Canva, both free and Pro, simply isn't any longer a design app with some AI tools sprinkled in anymore. It is largely now an AI system that happens to have a design app wrapped around it. AI now runs so many things in Canva, like some resizing functions, background removal, reformatting options, even large parts of the template and element/stock libraries. Avoiding AI on Canva isn't as simple as skipping certain options or disabling a particular feature. A lot of the core uses are now AI-driven and it is rarely clear, aside from a few of the apps or actions, what is and is not AI.
    
  • It used to be that "use Canva Pro" was the go-to suggestion for small businesses without the budget to hire designers and who wanted to avoid using full-on genAI platforms (like IDK Midjourney? Is that still a thing? Whatever people use for AI image creation). Now, however, I still see that advice being given out, but it's fast becoming outdated. Canva is doing a hell of a PR job of sidestepping anti-AI backlash while still deeply integrating it into the platform...
  • What this means in practical terms: right now there is no viable and currently-accessible Canva alternative that I can move to in the short- to medium-term. Some possible alternates have knowledge barriers (e.g. Adobe Illustrator, which may also be riddled with AI for all I know), or resource barriers (e.g. hiring a designer, which is very much out of budgetary reach without a massive price hike that would become unsustainable for my customer base and unfair to them), none of which are surmountable right now. On the upside: I make all designs, such as they are, from scratch without using templates and with only very minimal use of stock elements (and I always keep an eagle eye out on those for any that look AI-generated). I also avoid using filters/tools that are clearly AI-driven, but those get better all the time and are often undisclosed, so I can't guarantee none are ever used by accident. Even if they are, it's very minimal. Most of the workflow is set, simple, and has stayed the same since the beginning. In the meanwhile, we'll keep an eye out for Canva alternates.
• Adobe, esp. Photoshop and Acrobat:
  • These two parts of the Adobe Creative Suite are being used, irreplaceably, for a few things:
    • PS (Photoshop) is used on artwork touchups. Many book cover scans, which often need extensive cleanup and correction. PS is also a more robust tool for larger print-ready image files than Canva and has a lot more fine grain control over image correction and editing. In PS, we're avoiding the 'neural filters', as well as opting out of genAI versions of legacy tools anytime that choice is given. Still, with every update, more new AI-driven tools are integrated into the platform and it's less clear all the time which ones are and are not AI. Some are obvious or disclosed, but others may not be. 
    • Acrobat is used extensively, both for typical admin (sales and accounting reports, etc.), as well as for all the product labels. Every product label is prepped for printing in a PDF template & all need specific printer-specific tweaks for alignment. No other tools I have tried can replace this. Acrobat does have an app-wide toggle for turning off GenAI, though (unlike Photoshop) and we have turned that off in Preferences.
  • We'll continue to use the Adobe products as ethically as possible, while continuing to follow their progression into deeper AI-integration. 

Avoiding AI in 2026 is like playing a neverending game of whack-a-mole, where the levels get more and more complicated every turn, but it's a game we'll keep playing as long as it remains tenable to do so.

The one hard and fast rule I will forever stick to my guns with, though: no AI will ever be used in the perfume creation process. Ever. Period. No brainstorming or formulation drafting with an LLM, it'll all be from my own human brain. No AI is used during any of the other product creation phases either. There may be some AI tools present in Excel, which is required for managing the formula and batching spreadsheets. But, while we do use Excel to document all formulas and batching, it's very basic rudimentary calculations and data entry. The templates all date back to 2019 and the math is simple. 

So, what is the TLDR here? PULP Fragrance, uses no AI in any phase of perfume creation. The product you get is human-made, always has and always will be. 

In light of how things have changed since back when I initially wrote that 'no AI' statement in the FAQ, I'll be making some corrections to it now and also point it to this post for a more nuanced and detailed lens on the topic.

Thoughts? I'd genuinely love to hear them! Chime in below in the comment section, or feel free to msg directly via the Chat function (which is non-AI, it's a lightweight DM function and we reply via email if we're not online at the time the message is sent), or via email on the Contact page.

One of my core issues with AI as it exists and is being implemented today, is that it is very anti-human and anti-community. I love humans and community & when I say I'd love to hear from you I really do mean it!

Take care and make sure to have some analog/IRL time today. Smelling things can help stimulate a brain overtaxed by screens: go sniff stuff!

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Note: while I do want to hear from my peeps, anyone using this as an excuse to post or msg with pro-AI evangelizing will be blocked/muted and comments deleted. Take that crap to X, this is not the place for it. I'm not going to change my stance. If you want to present a nuanced take on any upsides to AI, that's fine but go do it in your own space, not my house.