MAI Image 2.6

Released on September 4, 2026

Changes from previous version

Successor to MAI Image 2.5 with multi-reference editing, web grounding, higher resolution, and a dedicated Flash production tier.

Release Summary

Microsoft AI's strongest image model yet, in public preview on Microsoft Foundry with MAI Image 2.6 Flash as the production-speed sibling. Both add multi-image reference editing, web grounding, and dynamic aspect ratios up to 1.5K. Microsoft reports No. 2 on Arena for text-to-image and image editing as of 2026-09-04. Azure list rates: $5/M text input, $8/M image input, and $38/M image output. Available in MAI Playground and Foundry.

Timeline

September 4, 2026

MAI-Image-2.6 released

Microsoft AI ships MAI-Image-2.6 and MAI-Image-2.6-Flash into public preview on Microsoft Foundry and MAI Playground.