The string maker first insisted a viral NYXL HD demo track was human-made, then confirmed a review found Suno Studio had regenerated it. "We got this wrong," the company said, pledging to require disclosure of any generative AI going forward.
2026-08-12 · by Moe Ameen
D'Addario, the guitar-string and accessories maker, acknowledged in August 2026 that generative AI was used to produce the music in one of its own promotional videos — after having publicly denied it. The clip, a demo for the company's NYXL HD electric guitar strings, featured an instrumental track that viewers and other musicians flagged as AI-generated. As the accusations spread, the brand pushed back, framing the piece as a heavily produced mix rather than an AI creation and, per multiple reports, deleting comments that raised the AI question on the original post.
The denial did not hold. The company said a full internal review confirmed that Suno Studio — a tool from the AI-music service Suno — had been used to regenerate the original track. In its acknowledgment, D'Addario said words to the effect of "We got this wrong," adding that it had "shared inaccurate information" and apologizing for it. The reversal is notable because the brand had gone as far as offering production details to defend the track's human origin before conceding that AI had in fact been involved.
D'Addario paired the admission with a policy change. It stated that it "does not support AI-generated music" and that its process "will reflect that going forward," saying it would require employees and creative partners to disclose any use of generative AI in the content they produce for the company. Exact wording, the timeline of the original video, and the specifics of the internal review come from the brand's public statements and trade-press coverage; confirm any precise quote or date against D'Addario's own posts before repeating it, as statements were edited during the episode.
The timely move is to publish your read while the story is hot. "A guitar-string brand denied using AI music, then admitted it — here's the disclosure lesson for anyone running ads" is a post your audience is actively discussing, and being early and clear-eyed beats a slow think-piece. Feed the facts into [Kompozy](/) and they become a [Blog Article](/glossary/output-buckets) unpacking what the reversal means for brand content, a [Carousel](/glossary/output-buckets) of the do's and don'ts of AI disclosure in ads, [Quote Graphics](/glossary/output-buckets) of the sharpest lines, and a batch of captioned shorts — all held to your voice by the [Persona Brief](/glossary/persona-brief) and scheduled across the eight social platforms plus blog and email with [Autopilot](/glossary/autopilot).
The deeper lesson is about running a controlled, honest content pipeline — which is the opposite of a track quietly regenerated in Suno and then defended. Kompozy generates net-new video, images, carousels, blogs, and newsletters, and it keeps you in the driver's seat on what's AI-assisted and what isn't: your copy runs through the Persona Brief so it reads like you rather than generic model output, and [Marketing Shorts](/glossary/output-buckets) composite your own licensed music and demo footage — Kompozy doesn't fabricate a "band," so you're never passing an AI track off as human. Everything stays one look via [HyperFrames](/glossary/hyperframes) and fans out across nine destinations. The point D'Addario learned the hard way: use AI deliberately, label it, and keep it out of the parts your audience expects to be real — a pipeline you control makes that a setting, not an apology.
Yes. After initially denying it, D'Addario said in August 2026 that an internal review confirmed Suno Studio was used to regenerate the music in a promotional video for its NYXL HD electric guitar strings. The company said "We got this wrong," acknowledged it had shared inaccurate information, and apologized.
D'Addario stated that it does not support AI-generated music and that its process will reflect that going forward. It said it will require employees and creative partners to disclose any use of generative AI in content produced for the company. Confirm the exact wording against D'Addario's own statements, which were edited during the episode.
The video was a demo meant to showcase physical guitar strings to an audience of working musicians, so passing off an AI-generated track as human undercut the point. The bigger damage came from the brand denying it and deleting comments before conceding — a provenance and disclosure failure more than an anti-AI stance.