U2's The Edge says AI couldn't write a U2 song, but it can write country because it's 'very strictly codified'

The Edge tried to get AI music programs to write a U2 song. They couldn’t.

What they could write, he says, is a country song, “because it’s very strictly codified.”

The U2 guitarist said it to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, in an interview filmed at Mount Temple, the band’s old school in Dublin. U2 posted the 66-minute video on its YouTube channel on October 29, 2026, ahead of the band’s 16th studio album, Carnaval De Luz, out November 13. MusicRadar picked up the AI part on November 6.

What The Edge said about AI music programs in his 2026 Zane Lowe interview

Lowe had just said that putting themselves through a hard process is part of the chemistry of a U2 album. The Edge answered that the band doesn’t fit into a genre, and then told Lowe how he found that out:

“We don’t have really a musical genre that we fit into, and I discovered this recently very clearly when I was playing around with some of these AI music programs. I was trying to see if it could come up with a U2 song. They couldn’t, and I realized that it is possible to get it to write a country song because it’s very strictly codified.”

That’s the whole test, as he told it. He didn’t name the programs or say how many songs he generated. The exchange starts about 41 minutes into the video:

If you want to run the same test yourself, my roundup of AI music generators covers the main ones.

Then he explained why a U2 song is the hard one.

Why The Edge says AI can write a country song but not a U2 song

Codified means written down as a set of rules. The Edge’s point is that country has rules clear enough for a program to follow, and U2 has none to hand it.

He did concede that one part of the band’s sound is easier to pin down: “my guitar will probably be the most, I suppose I go certain places sonically.”

Then he made his main point.

“

But our songwriting is never a formula. We don't know how to do that.

Lowe jumped in with a track from the new album: “there’s no way, no matter how much you train that thing, that’s going to give me or anyone a riff like Greatest Show on Earth.”

The Edge described how U2 gets to a riff like that: “Our approach is to find something that is intriguing, inspiring, and just let it dictate where we go. So we always find ourselves surprised by where things go.” He called it “kind of a mysterious thing.”

Country, the genre he picked as the one AI can write, is also the genre where AI songs have already charted.

AI country songs that already charted, from Breaking Rust to River Cain

In November 2025, the AI act Breaking Rust hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart with “Walk My Walk”.

In August 2026, River Cain, an AI-created country act, had 5 singles on the iTunes chart, with “Hell Out of Me” at No. 3.

Nashville songwriter Chris Gray went another way. He writes every song himself and has his AI singer Vance Drake perform them, labelled as AI on every release.

If you’re trying to work out which country songs in your feed are AI, my guide to spotting an AI-generated song walks through the checks.

The Edge isn’t the only big name talking about AI this month. The same week MusicRadar ran his comments, Machine Gun Kelly said anyone who brings AI around him is fired, while other famous artists already use it somewhere in how they make music.

Carnaval De Luz, the album The Edge was promoting, comes out on November 13, 2026.