Guitar String Maker D'Addario Admits It Used AI Music After Weeks of Denying It

D'Addario, a well-known guitar string manufacturer, has admitted that an AI music tool called Suno Studio was used to create part of a recent promotional video. The company had publicly denied using AI for nearly two weeks before reversing course. The confirmation came on August 12 after an internal review, according to The Verge.

The promotional video was a demo for D'Addario's NYXL guitar strings, which are designed for guitars tuned to lower pitches. D'Addario had initially denied any use of AI in the video when accusations surfaced the month before, Guitar World reported on August 10.

Rather than putting out a new statement, D'Addario edited its original July 29th Instagram post, which had denied using AI. The updated post now says the original denial was wrong. D'Addario said it completed a full review and confirmed that Suno Studio was used to regenerate the original track that had been recorded for the promotional video (The Verge; Guitar.com).

D'Addario stated it was fed false information, which it said led to its inaccurate public statements about the promotional video, as reported by Guitar World via Facebook on August 11.

The admission was prompted in part by an independent investigation. Guitarist and YouTuber Rhett Shull obtained the original project files from D'Addario and concluded that Suno was probably used to regenerate the original recording (The Verge). These files are the behind-the-scenes records of how a music track was made, showing the individual layers and settings used during production. Shull's findings appear to have increased public pressure on the company, though the verified facts do not establish a direct causal link between his analysis and D'Addario's internal review.

D'Addario's updated Instagram post also apologized for heavy-handed comment moderation during the period of denial. The company acknowledged that it had deleted critics' comments and blocked users who raised questions about potential AI involvement (The Verge).

In the same post, D'Addario stated that it does not support AI-generated music and will require both employees and creative partners to disclose any use of AI going forward (The Verge).

The timeline is notable. D'Addario's original Instagram denial was posted on July 29. Guitar World first reported the company's confirmation of AI use on August 10. Digital Music News published its coverage on August 11, and The Verge and Guitar.com followed on August 12 with additional detail about the Suno Studio confirmation and the Instagram post edits.

The broader context here is a pattern that has come up repeatedly as AI tools move into creative work. A company uses an AI tool at some stage of production, the use goes undisclosed, and when questions arise the instinct is to deny rather than investigate. The two-week gap between the original denial and the corrected statement is relatively long in an era when social media scrutiny can compress such cycles to days. D'Addario's decision to edit the original Instagram post rather than issue a new one is also worth noting as a disclosure practice, since editing a prior denial in place can obscure the historical record for anyone who encounters the post later without seeing the original version.

The comment moderation behavior adds another dimension. Deleting critics' comments and blocking users during a period when the company's public stance was factually wrong compounds the reputational damage beyond the AI use itself. D'Addario's apology for that moderation acknowledges as much.

The policy change D'Addario announced is the kind of internal step that several creative-industry companies have begun adopting as AI tools become more accessible and their outputs harder to tell apart from human-created work. Whether D'Addario's policy is enforced through contracts, workflow checkpoints, or a lighter-touch honor system is not specified in the available facts.

The role of independent technical analysis in this case is also instructive. Rhett Shull's examination of the project files provided a concrete, verifiable basis for challenging the company's denial, rather than relying on what the music sounded like alone. As AI-generated music becomes harder to distinguish by ear, access to project files and production data may become the primary way to verify claims about how something was made. This is similar to how, in the software world, companies are increasingly expected to back up claims about their code with verifiable records rather than simply asking people to take their word for it.