No, OnePlus didn't launch a speaker. It launched an AI Music Studio instead.

OnePlus had been teasing a new launch for the past few days. Posts on X hyping up the launch fooled everyone into thinking the company would launch a new speaker, entering the category for the first time ever. However, that’s not what happened today. Instead of new hardware, OnePlus announced a new AI Music Studio — an online tool to help you generate lyrics, music, and music videos using text and other prompts.

OnePlus’ new endeavor isn’t a serious one if you’re a professional musician looking to create something complex. It’s a limited tool made mostly just for fun. You are greeted by an interface where you select from a pre-determined list of genres, moods, and music video themes.

You then add text prompts for what you want your song to be about. We tried to go with a serious theme first, “a song about the ongoing Israel-Gaza war,” but we were promptly told our request was beyond the scope of the company’s policies. We then chose to create a song about “a lonely man in a big city.” Once that request was also rejected for policy reasons, we went with a song about “a wild night out.”

Once we hit the ‘Generate’ button, the AI tool quickly translated the prompts into rap lyrics, which, to be honest, weren’t half bad. You can always regenerate the lyrics if you don’t like what you see. Once you’re happy with what you have, you can hit “Proceed,” and the software will create the track for you with a graphical music video based on your selected theme. You can choose to download your song or share it across social media.

What’s OnePlus’ reason for making this AI Music Studio? Probably just publicity and jumping on the “AI” buzz. But anyway, it was fun to take a break from regular news to try this out.