Guitar company D’Addario admits that AI music was used in a promotional video

D'Addario, the guitar string and accessories company, has admitted that AI-generated music — specifically produced using Suno — was included in a recent promotional video, per The Verge. The acknowledgment came after nearly two weeks of the company denying the allegations as evidence continued to mount against it.

The admission came in a lengthy update to an Instagram post originally published July 29th, in which D'Addario had previously denied the use of generative AI. The company edited that original post to state it was wrong, according to The Verge.

Over the course of the controversy, D'Addario offered multiple shifting explanations for the audio artifacts that drew suspicion. These included low-quality exports, combinations of plugins such as Autotune introducing digital noise, and the use of AI-assisted mastering tools from LANDR and Logic — none of which satisfied critics, per The Verge. Throughout this period, the company denied the allegations even as Guitar.com reported the evidence continued to pile up.

The episode is notable in part because of the audience involved. D'Addario is a well-known supplier to working musicians and guitar players, a community that has been broadly resistant to AI-generated music — and particularly sensitive to its use in contexts where human musicianship is implicitly assumed, such as a string demonstration video. Using Suno, a generative AI music platform, in a product demo aimed at that audience carried specific reputational risk.

The company has not, based on available reporting, detailed the full circumstances of how the Suno-generated audio ended up in the video — whether it was a deliberate creative choice, a production shortcut, or an error — nor has it addressed why it denied the allegations for as long as it did before reversing course. What to watch going forward is whether D'Addario faces lasting backlash from the musician community and how other instrument and gear companies respond to the precedent of using AI-generated audio in product marketing.