Like to make it up as you go along? Or better yet, want to have a computer do it for you? A team of three AI researchers with Google have built a tool called Piano Genie, which allows players – regardless of skill level – to improvise on a piano in real-time using just eight buttons.

The team were inspired by Guitar Hero, Business Insider reported. The popular video game franchise simulates playing an electric guitar using a guitar-shaped controller with a series of coloured buttons, allowing players of all abilities to thrash out their favourite rock songs. Piano Genie’s focus is not on belting out the classics, however, but on improvisation. Rather than providing songs for the player to tap along to, the tool decides which notes follow each other in a similar way to a phone’s predictive text function guessing what you’ll write next.

“When you’re playing it, it’s this really awesome experience where, occasionally, it will feel like it’s sort of reading your mind and play the exact note you’re intending to,” said Chris Donahue, an...