“I clicked on it and honestly was kind of freaked out”: AI guitar YouTubers? Rhett Shull issues warning after finding AI versions of his content

Artificial intelligence is rapidly making its way into every corner of the guitar world. Bad actors are replicating guitarists’ playing videos and replacing them with AI-generated models, and now another new phenomenon is emerging: AI guitar YouTubers.

Guitarist, gear reviewer, and popular YouTube personality Rhett Shull recently discovered that his videos are being used as training fodder for AI YouTube influencers.

“I was on Instagram, and I got tagged in a story by The Bad Guitarist Podcast. [It says,] ‘This week, we take a look at an AI guitar YouTube channel that popped up in the last month and has over 5000 subs, 600,000 views, and a ton of comments from unsuspecting viewers.’”

Out of curiosity, Shull clicked on it, only to discover that this specific AI YouTube channel, the so-called Guitar Gems with Chase, “is directly ripping me off in several different ways. I clicked on this [channel] last night and honestly was kind of freaked out.”

“If you’ve been watching my channel since before 2021, you should recognize this background,” Shull points out. “This is the old set – the old background that I used to film in from about late 2018 until we bought this house in 2021.

“This [AI-generated] creator, Chase, is wearing [a jacket that] is pretty clearly modeled after this jacket, which I used to wear in my videos all the time, so this is one of my older videos.”

Background and jacket aside, the bad actors behind the videos are going as far as to replicate the very gear Shull had in his previous clips.

“There’s no question that this is someone, some content farm, or some person somewhere, who’s feeding my videos to some sort of AI and having it spit out this content. I wish I was as handsome, though, as this guy is!” he quips.

The AI-generated creator’s videos took an even darker turn. Turns out, it’s being used to slander guitar products and reputable brands without being held accountable.

“What this video is claiming is that a company like Gibson or, later, Fender and PRS, and these other companies are ripping you off because they’re using the same machines and building the same guitars, but in China,” Shull says. “It’s completely wrong information; it’s false.

“If I said that stuff in a video, if I came out and made these claims that are just like objectively false, I could be held liable for slander or defamation because I’m lying about a company. But so far as I understand it, because this is an AI creator, and AI is completely unregulated here in the United States, there are no rules around this stuff, at least as far as I can tell.”

Shull goes on to say that “YouTube obviously doesn’t seem to have a problem with it,” as the AI-generated channel is “most likely monetized” and not held to the same standards as a human creator.

What’s more, the channel is also being leveraged to sell guitar courses, or, as advertised, “The complete, no-BS manual that takes you from ‘I don’t know what to buy’ to ‘I own the right gear, it plays perfectly, and I got it at a fair price.’”

The so-called “4-in-1” guide currently costs $27 (for a limited time only, of course), with topics including “The Honest Guitar Buyer’s Guide 2026” and “The Ultimate Beginner Gear Setup,” which we can assume are also generated by AI.

While concrete laws regarding AI are few and far between and are different across territories and jurisdictions, in March 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held that the Copyright Act “requires all eligible work to be authored in the first instance by a human being,” according to a paper published by Christopher T. Zirpoli.

Elsewhere, Executive Order 14365 pushes for a “single national framework” for AI but doesn’t clearly address copyright and privacy concerns. Ultimately, as per Legal Clarity, “No single federal law governs artificial intelligence in the United States. Instead, AI regulation is spread across executive orders, agency guidance, existing civil rights and consumer protection statutes, and a growing number of state laws.”

This naturally leads to a patchwork system that does little to address the concerns of creators like Shull.

As for YouTube, the platform requires creators to label AI-generated content. There were also recent updates to YouTube’s privacy standards that make it possible for individuals to request the removal of “AI-generated or other synthetic or altered content that simulates an identifiable individual, including their face or voice.” Crucially, however, videos are not automatically demonetized simply because they are AI-generated.

“It really sucks, man,” says Shull. “The fact that this is allowed to happen on YouTube, the fact that the platform doesn’t immediately crack down on this AI-generated slop, really sucks. And as a creator, and as someone that does this for a living now here on YouTube, it doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in me about the future of this platform.”

Janelle is a staff writer at GuitarWorld.com. After a long stint in classical music, Janelle discovered the joys of playing guitar in dingy venues at the age of 13 and has never looked back. Janelle has written extensively about the intersection of music and technology and how it is shaping the future of the music industry, and has a special interest in shining a spotlight on traditionally underrepresented artists and global guitar sounds. She also had the pleasure of interviewing Melissa Auf der Maur, Yvette Young, Danielle Haim, Fanny, and Karan Katiyar from Bloodywood, among others. When she’s not writing, you’ll find her creating layers of delicious audio lasagna with her Anglo-Maltese, art-rock band ĠENN.