Suno

Our verdict on Suno

Suno turns a text prompt into a finished song faster than anything else we have tried, with audio quality that surprises people the first time they hear it. We made the Built This Week jingle with it and still use it for loops under our clips. Jordan's caveat a year later: there are probably still no AI songs in the top 100.

What we built with Suno

We have not built software on top of Suno. What we have made with it is music for the show:

• The Built This Week jingle. Our theme song was made with Suno, as Jordan said in Episode 3 and Sam repeated in Episode 22.
• Loops for clips and videos. We layer Suno tracks under our short clips and other videos.
• A live demo on air. In Episode 3 (July 2025) Jordan made an opera song about Built This Week, then turned the same lyrics into a country trap song a minute later.
• Songs for people. Jordan made a song in Italian, in her home dialect, for his 80-year-old aunt.

Our other music builds used different tools. The Strudel AI DJ mixer generates beats as Strudel code, which Jordan called "another type of, like, music production." The AI retail DJ used five custom songs, but the episode does not say which tool made them.

So in the case of your question, yeah, of course, we used it to build the Built This Week jingle for our show. And we continue to use it for loops on top of our music of our clips and for other videos we're using.

— Jordan Metzner, Episode 3

How we use Suno

This is the workflow Jordan showed live in Episode 3, starting at 12:23.

1. Start simple. Type a plain description, such as an opera song about the AI podcast Built This Week, and Suno makes a song.
2. For a better song, have ChatGPT write the prompt and lyrics. Jordan asks ChatGPT for a prompt and lyrics for Suno 4.5. He finds this gives him a much better song.
3. Remove artist names. ChatGPT's first draft said "in the style of Verdi or Puccini," which Suno does not accept. Tell ChatGPT no artist names and it rewrites the prompt.
4. Paste the description and the lyrics separately, then click create.
5. Compare the two versions. Each generation gives you two takes. Listen to both and keep the better one, or tweak the prompt.
6. Reuse the lyrics in another genre. Ask ChatGPT for a new style prompt and keep the same lyrics. Jordan went from opera to country trap hip hop in one step.
7. Finish the track. Download as MP3 or WAV, generate a lyric video, remix or edit with styles, or pull the stems to separate vocals from the instrumental.

So in Suno, you're actually not allowed to reference artists, and they do that, like, to protect the artists, I guess.

— Jordan Metzner, Episode 3

Where Suno falls short

• No artist references. You have to describe a style rather than name who it sounds like.
• Prompt quality matters. A one-line prompt gives a decent song; the better results came from a ChatGPT-written prompt plus lyrics.
• The quality ceiling. In Episode 50 (July 2026), Jordan argued AI music, video and images still have not crossed into content people consume at scale.
• Other options exist. Jordan has also tried Udio and ElevenLabs APIs. In Episode 38 he tried Google's Lyria 3 inside Google AI Studio, whose clip preview model makes 30-second clips. We have not run a head-to-head.

Suno is raising at, you know, high valuations, but how many AI songs are in the top 100? And it's probably zero.

— Jordan Metzner, Episode 50

Still, Jordan's take in Episode 21 (November 2025) is that Suno democratizes music: a kid can describe the song they want and make it. Guest Carina of Axiom said in Episode 22 that it lets people with no training in composition turn a melody in their head into reality. More in AI in music.

Episodes featuring Suno

• Episode 3: Suno as tool of the week, with the live opera and country trap demo.
• Episode 21: Jordan on why he loves generating music with Suno.
• Episode 22: Suno's Series C, and our theme song.
• Episode 38: trying Lyria after a lot of time in Suno.
• Episode 50: why there are no AI songs in the top 100 yet.

FAQ

How do you use Suno?

Type a description of the song you want and Suno returns two versions in moments. Jordan gets better results by asking ChatGPT to write both the style prompt and the lyrics, then pasting each into Suno.

Can you use artist names in Suno prompts?

No. Suno does not let you reference artists, which Jordan assumes is to protect them. He asks ChatGPT for a prompt with no artist names instead.

What can you do with a Suno song after you make it?

In our July 2025 demo Jordan showed downloading as MP3 or WAV, generating a lyric video, remixing and editing with styles, and pulling stems to separate the vocals from the instrumental.

Is Suno good enough for commercial music?

We use it for our show jingle and clip loops. In July 2026 Jordan pointed out that Suno is raising at high valuations but there are probably zero AI songs in the top 100.