This New AI Music Model Is Already Better Than Suno—We Put ACE to the Test

In brief

• ACE Music v1 ranks ahead of Suno v6 in Artificial Analysis' blind listening benchmark for AI-generated vocal music.
• Decrypt's tests found stronger melodies, more natural voices and cleaner endings, but Suno handled some niche genres better.
• The flagship model remains proprietary, while ACE-Step 1.5 is already open source and ACE Music v1 Flash is scheduled for release later in 2026.

Artificial intelligence has gotten pretty good at writing songs. Now, a relatively unfamiliar competitor has managed to beat Suno, arguably the biggest name in AI music, at its own game.

ACE Music v1, developed by ACE Studio, has taken first place on Artificial Analysis' vocal music leaderboard, scoring 1,160 Elo points against Suno v6's 1,144.

The AA-Music-Vocal v1.1 benchmark measures the quality of AI-generated songs containing vocals. Evaluators listen to tracks produced from identical prompts without knowing which model created them, then choose their favorite. Those preferences determine an Elo-style rating, with higher scores indicating stronger listener preference.

The lead is relatively narrow, and the models' statistical confidence intervals overlap. Suno also retains the top position on the separate instrumental music leaderboard.