The AI music map, November 2026
Six services, three ways of making music with a model, and what each company says about its training data.
“AI music” covers tools that have very little in common under the surface. They differ in what the model produces, what it learned from, and what you are allowed to carry out the door.
This is the field as of 11 November 2026, with sources linked at the bottom. Where a company has described its training data, we quote it.
Three ways to do it
Audio models trained on recordings at large. The model outputs sound, and it learned sound from a very large body of recorded music. Suno and Udio began here. Both were sued by the major labels in June 2024, both acknowledged in court filings that their models were trained on copyrighted recordings and argued fair use, and both have spent the time since moving toward licences.
Audio models trained on licensed or open catalogues. Same kind of model, narrower and documented diet. Stable Audio, Eleven Music and Google’s Lyria describe themselves this way, with different levels of detail.
Code. A language model writes a program, and a synthesis engine plays it. No audio model is involved. This is where songcode sits.
Side by side
| what you get | vocals | what they say about training data | taking it with you | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| songcode | source code, played in your browser | no | no audio model; a general-purpose language model writes the code | source file, WAV, MP3 |
| Suno v6 | finished songs | yes | “developed with our industry partners, including Warner Music Group, BMG and Believe” | 20 or 60 downloads a month on paid plans, none on free |
| Udio | finished songs | yes | sued in 2024, since settled with Universal and Warner; a licensed platform is planned | downloads off since October 2025 |
| Stable Audio 3.0 | instrumentals and sound effects, up to 6:20 | no | “trained on licensed and Creative Commons material” | no download cap; open weights for three of four models |
| Eleven Music | songs and instrumentals | yes | “Built in partnership with artists, labels, and publishers” | paid plans; commercial terms vary by tier |
| Lyria 3 in Gemini | 30 second tracks, longer on Lyria 3 Pro | yes | Google says it has “been very mindful of copyright and partner agreements” | every track carries a SynthID watermark |
Suno
The best known of the group. You type a prompt, you get a finished song with a singer. In September 2026 Suno launched v6 and retired every earlier model. Paid plans start at $8 a month and cap downloads at 20 or 60 songs a month.
On training, there are two eras. In an August 2024 court filing, Suno said its training data “includes essentially all music files of reasonable quality that are accessible on the open Internet” and argued that was fair use. Warner settled with Suno in November 2025. Universal and Sony have not, and their case continues. More in songcode and Suno.
Udio
Udio settled with Universal in October 2025 and with Warner a few weeks later. On the day of the Universal announcement it switched off downloads, and reviews from October 2026 report they are still off while the company builds a licensed platform. More in songcode and Udio.
Stable Audio
Stability AI is the most specific about its data. It publishes the breakdown for Stable Audio 3.0: 806,284 licensed files from the AudioSparx library and 472,618 Creative Commons recordings from Freesound. Three of the four models ship as open weights that you can run on your own machine. The models do not generate vocals. A hosted version starts at $12 a month.
If you want an audio model and care where its training data came from, this is the one with the most paperwork.
Eleven Music
ElevenLabs launched its music model in August 2025 with licensing deals in place with Merlin and Kobalt. It generates songs with vocals as well as instrumentals. Plans run from free to $99 a month, and the commercial rights you get depend on the tier.
Lyria
Google’s Lyria 3 arrived in the Gemini app in February 2026, generating 30 second tracks. Lyria 3 Pro followed in March with tracks of around three minutes. Google’s launch post says it has been “very mindful of copyright and partner agreements” in training the model, and reporting on the Pro launch says the data came from partners and from YouTube and Google material it is permitted to use. It has not published a breakdown. Every output carries an imperceptible SynthID watermark.
Where songcode sits
songcode is the odd one out. It has no audio model at all. A general-purpose language model writes a short program in a music pattern language, and your browser plays that program with synths and drum machine samples.
That makes it narrower than everything else on this page. Everything it plays is a synth, a drum machine or a sampled instrument. It does not sing. It will not hand you a finished pop song.
It also makes it the only one where the output is something you can read. We trained nothing covers what that means for the training question, including the parts of it that are not ours to answer.
You can get a rough version of this by hand: ask a chatbot for Strudel code and paste it into strudel.cc. songcode is that loop with the setup done properly. The model works from a written reference, a brief for each genre and a set of mixing rules. Each track is tested in your browser before it plays. The result lands in a player with a stems view, a library and export.
How to choose
If you want a finished song with a voice today, use Suno, or Eleven Music if licensing deals behind the model matter to you. If you want instrumental audio from a model with documented training data, possibly running on your own hardware, use Stable Audio.
If you want an electronic track you can open, read and rework line by line, that is what we built songcode for.
Sources
Checked 11 November 2026.
- Suno: pricing, Introducing v6, v6 FAQ.
- Suno’s 2024 filing: Music Business Worldwide, 404 Media.
- Suno litigation status: Engadget, 8 November 2026.
- Udio: A New Era of Music, Udio blog, Loop Fans, October 2026.
- Stable Audio: Stability AI’s licensing explainer.
- Eleven Music: product page, Music Business Worldwide on the launch.
- Lyria: Google’s launch post, Dataconomy on Lyria 3 Pro.