How these Sask. creators are trying to balance artistic integrity and AI

Erin McNutt · CBC News

· Posted: Aug 20, 2026 7:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: August 20

Kyle Moffat says his business is trying to navigate the modern realities of artificial intelligence while maintaining artistic integrity.

Moffat own Regina-based Sticks and Doodles, which specializes in personalized artwork and gifts.

“[AI] has radically changed our business world,” Moffat told Saskatoon Morning host Candice Lipski.

Moffat said there are some aspects of the business where AI makes sense.

“It allows us to do data analysis on sales and advertising that, for a small business like ours, we just never would have had access to.”

LISTEN | Sticks and Doodles co-founder on the balance of art and artificial intelligence.:

The creative side of the operation is where AI begins to lose its lustre.

“A lot of what we’re getting from customers is ‘here’s my company’s logo,' and it’s clearly been made with AI,” Moffat said. “We have to explain to them that this is not anything we’re able to use.”

According to Moffat, reworking submitted images cost hundreds of dollars just to make it something usable.

He describes receiving AI graphics from customers as a grey area.

“We have to balance the fact that if we make this, is it really our piece? Are we really taking possibly someone else's work?”

Telling customers no can be challenging.

“We have to tell them, we’re a business that employs people that design stuff for you. So this is great, but it’s not something we use,” Moffat said.

He said there are differing opinions in-house on the usefulness of AI.

“We have staff that love AI, versus our makers and our creators who are often very against it, who think it’s awful and unethical.”

'It’s a little dystopian': musician

Farideh Olsen is a content creator, musician and comedian who performs under her first name. She joined Saskatoon Morning to discuss how AI has affected her and her art.

“AI is like a constant discussion, and I'm constantly figuring out how I want to work with it,” she said.

LISTEN | Proving your work is really yours in an AI world:

Farideh has noticed more people in the comments below her videos asking if her songs are AI.

“I feel like that’s very strange. It’s a little dystopian to be like, ‘I’m human. I made human music.'”

To combat any confusion, Farideh now includes more cues in her videos to prove it’s coming from a human source.

“I'll bring in, like, a drummer instead of me just dancing, so that it can show visually that the song was made by humans, because if I’m just singing along, you can't quite tell,” Farideh said.

Farideh said she tried using AI while working on a song about spotting the symptoms of a heart attack in women.

“I was trying to get it to write copy, or help me figure out what my angle was,” she explained. “It kept trying to make the angle vague. It was like it really didn’t understand women. I was like, ‘no, it’s not about how women aren’t taught about their bodies. The injustice is that we’re only taught how to spot a heart attack in a man.'”

WATCH | Farideh highlights different heart attack symptoms in women vs men:

While she isn’t sure what the future of art and AI holds, she joked that she has a plan.

“I think people want humans, like people love people. So it’s probably going to be me and a one-string banjo, playing it really, badly and people will love it.”