Microsoft has added generative music capabilities to its Copilot chatbot by integrating a plugin from Cambridge, Massachusetts-based startup Suno AI. Microsoft calls Suno “a leader in AI music technology, pioneering the ability to generate complete songs — lyrics, instrumentals, and singing voices — from a single sentence.” Suno offers a generative tool on Discord. The Copilot plugin is specific to Microsoft, though the biggest difference is it will only generate one song per prompt as opposed to the app offered directly by Suno, which provides two. The songs are generally a minute or two in length, and come with lyric sheets.

The Microsoft version of the app can be launched using the company’s Microsoft Edge browser, visiting Copilot.Microsoft.com and logging in with a Microsoft account. Users can then enable the Suno plugin or click on the “Make music with Suno” logo, Microsoft explains in a blog post.

Once activated, “users can enter prompts into Copilot like ‘Create a pop song about adventures with your family’ and have Suno … bring their musical ideas to life,” TechCrunch writes.

While “Suno doesn’t reveal the source of its AI training data on its website — nor does it block users from entering prompts like ‘in the style of [artist],’ unlike some other GenAI music tools,” according to TechCrunch it make an effort to block some prompts. “Its models don’t recognize artists’ names” and “prevents users from uploading the lyrics to existing songs to generate covers,” TechCrunch reports.

Suno AI also “forbids its free users from, say, monetizing generated AI songs on YouTube or Spotify, but it gives paid users commercial rights to their songs,” according to The Verge which cautions that “aspiring ghostwriters should keep in mind that Suno owns the rights to any songs generated by free users — though sharing on social platforms or other non-commercial uses is allowed.”

Copilot’s Suno integration comes at a time when “tech giants and startups alike are increasingly investing in GenAI-driven music creation tech,” TechCrunch says, noting that “in November, Google AI lab DeepMind and YouTube partnered to release Lyria, a GenAI model for music, and Dream Track, a limited-access tool to build AI tunes in YouTube Shorts, while Meta Platforms “has published several of its experiments with AI music generation.”

Stability AI and Riffusion are other AI firms that have introduced prompt-based GenAI apps.