One of Barack Obama's Favorite Singers Prompts Fury by Admitting She Used AI on at Least One Track From New Album

Charli xcx has sparked huge backlash after revealing artificial intelligence played a role in creating at least one song on her new album, with critics questioning whether one of Barack Obama's favorite artists has crossed a creative line by embracing AI-assisted music production.

As OK! has reported, the 33-year-old British singer released Music, Fashion, Film on July 24 as the eagerly awaited follow-up to her culture-defining album Brat.

Obama, 64, publicly embraced the "Brat summer" phenomenon last year by including Charli's music on his annual playlists and praising artists shaping contemporary culture, helping cement her status as one of the defining pop stars of the moment.

Now, Charli and collaborators A. G. Cook and Finn Keane have revealed one track, "No One Lasts Forever," incorporated an AI-powered audio plugin called Concatenator, developed by DataMind Audio.

The software analyzes large collections of recorded sounds before reconstructing incoming audio by assembling tiny fragments with matching characteristics.

A source close to the production told us: "Charli has always been fascinated by pushing creative boundaries and experimenting with technology, but nobody involved believes AI replaced musicians or songwriters. The software was simply another studio tool used to reshape sounds the team had already created themselves, even if some listeners are uncomfortable with anything carrying an AI label."

Another music industry insider said: "There was never any intention to deceive fans. Everyone involved still spent countless hours recording instruments, creating performances and making artistic decisions. The concern now is that admitting AI played even a small technical role risks overshadowing the craftsmanship behind the record and prompting criticism from people who oppose the technology on principle."

Speaking on a podcast, Charli reflected on the emotional impact of the tune.

She said: "This song has made me change the way I think about my life and my art. That was the journey I was going on while I was writing it."

Cook explained the production relied overwhelmingly on recorded performances rather than computer-programmed musical information.

He said: "The biggest difference compared to so many tracks Finn and I have done together is this is so audio heavy. There's pretty much no MIDI. Any MIDI that's in there is chopping up something we actually recorded or edited. A lot of the guitars, bass, all that, we're playing it in – drum kits and drum machines."

Describing the recording sessions, Cook said: "We have all these little sounds throughout the track, all these little bits and pieces. It's funny because we're literally running around the studio with as many things plugged in as possible and just doing the worst sounds."

Keane explained the unusual approach was intentional. He said the pair deliberately searched for unconventional noises while experimenting in the studio and eventually discovered they had created something unexpectedly effective.

Keane added the entire second half of No One Lasts Forever was built from fragments captured during those jam sessions, with the Concatenator plugin allowing the material to be reconstructed into a complete drum pattern while preserving the human performances at the heart of the recording process.