Google Just Entered the AI Music War — What It Means for Suno, Udio, and You

In the span of seven days, Google made two moves that reshape the entire AI music landscape. On February 18, they launched Lyria 3 — their most advanced music generation model — inside the Gemini app, available to hundreds of millions of users. Six days later, they acquired ProducerAI (formerly Riffusion), folding the startup's entire team into Google Labs and Google DeepMind.

This isn't Google dipping a toe in the water. This is a cannonball.

What Happened — The Timeline

What Is ProducerAI?

ProducerAI started life as Riffusion — an open-source experiment that went viral in December 2022 by generating audio from spectrograms. Co-founders Seth Forsgren and Hayk Martiros turned it into a real company, raised $4 million from Greycroft with The Chainsmokers as advisors, and relaunched as ProducerAI in July 2025.

What makes ProducerAI different from Suno is the workflow. Instead of typing a prompt and hoping for the best, you have a conversational back-and-forth with an AI agent. You workshop lyrics, tweak arrangements, swap genres, and iterate — like working with a producer in a studio. As Google's product director put it: "It's not a slot machine. The reality is that's not how good music is made."

The most interesting feature is Spaces — a tool that lets you create custom virtual instruments and audio effects using natural language. Describe the sound you want, and ProducerAI builds a playable instrument in your browser. No code, no DAW, no plugins. That's genuinely new.

What Is Lyria 3?

Lyria 3 is Google DeepMind's latest generative music model. Inside Gemini, it's consumer-friendly: type a description or upload a photo, get a 30-second track with custom cover art. Fun, lightweight, designed for social sharing.

Inside ProducerAI, it's a different beast. The same model generates tracks up to 3 minutes, with full vocals, lyrics, and multi-instrument arrangements. Google describes it as "high-fidelity, professional-grade" with deep understanding of musical structure.

Every Lyria 3 output is watermarked with SynthID — Google's invisible fingerprint that permanently identifies content as AI-generated. Unlike Suno or Udio, there's no ambiguity about provenance. Every track is machine-identifiable.

Why This Matters for Suno and Udio

Until this week, the AI music race was essentially Suno vs Udio. Two startups fighting for the same users. Google just turned it into a three-way race — and they brought an unfair advantage.

That said, Google isn't winning on quality yet. Suno v5 still produces better vocals and more musically coherent full-length tracks. ProducerAI's conversational workflow is interesting but unproven at scale. And Lyria 3's 30-second limit inside Gemini makes it more of a toy than a tool for most users.

The threat isn't what Google has today. It's what they'll have in six months.

Google vs Suno vs Udio: Quick Comparison

What This Means for You

If you're a Suno user

Don't panic. Suno is still better for making music right now. V5's vocals, the Studio editor, and stem export give it a clear creative edge. But keep an eye on ProducerAI — the conversational workflow and Spaces feature could evolve fast with Google's resources behind them.

If you're a content creator

This is great news. More competition means better free tiers, faster innovation, and more options. Google's legal position (no copyright lawsuits, SynthID watermarking) also makes Lyria 3 output arguably safer to use in monetized content than Suno or Udio tracks.

If you're a musician

The landscape is shifting. Google's explicit focus on "creative control for artists" and features like Spaces signal that AI music tools are moving beyond "generate-and-hope" toward genuine co-creation. Whether that threatens or empowers you depends entirely on how you choose to use these tools.

If you care about copyright

Watch this space closely. Google claims to have curated its training data responsibly, but hasn't provided specifics. The SynthID watermarking is a step toward transparency that Suno and Udio haven't matched. But Google's terms also grant them a perpetual, royalty-free license to content you create with ProducerAI — meaning they can use your output for platform operations and model improvement. Read the fine print.

The Bigger Picture

This acquisition isn't really about ProducerAI. It's about Google staking its claim in generative audio the same way it staked claims in search, video, and mobile. They now have Lyria 3 (the model), Gemini (the interface), YouTube (the distribution), ProducerAI (the creator tool), and SynthID (the trust layer). That's a full stack that no competitor can match.

Suno has better output today. But Google has the infrastructure to reach a billion users tomorrow. The AI music race just got a lot more interesting.

Want to see how tracks made with different AI tools actually compare? Browse the community-rated tracks on VoteMyAI — real listeners rating real output from Suno, Udio, ElevenLabs, and more.