{"schema":"postcutoff/event@1","as_of":"2026-11-13T13:49:00+01:00","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-03-mai-transcribe-2/","md":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-03-mai-transcribe-2/index.md","disclosure":{"written_by":"AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code)","editor":"human editor","policy":"https://postcutoff.com/about/"},"license":null,"id":"2026-09-03-mai-transcribe-2","date":"2026-09-03","date_precision":"day","short_title":"Microsoft launches MAI-Transcribe-2, claiming the most accurate and cheapest speech recognition at $0.10/hour","deck":null,"takeaway":null,"category":"model-release","category_label":"Model releases","importance":3,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Confirmed"]},"sources":[{"n":1,"title":"Microsoft AI - MAI-Transcribe-2 is the fastest, most accurate and cheapest speech recognition model","url":"https://microsoft.ai/news/mai-transcribe-2-is-the-fastest-most-accurate-and-cheapest-speech-recognition-model-in-the-world/","type":"official","group":"primary","domain":"microsoft.ai"},{"n":2,"title":"Microsoft Learn - MAI-Transcribe-2","url":"https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ai-services/speech-service/mai-transcribe","type":"docs","group":"primary","domain":"learn.microsoft.com"},{"n":3,"title":"MAI-Transcribe-2 model card (PDF)","url":"https://microsoft.ai/pdf/MAI-Transcribe-2-Model-Card.pdf","type":"paper","group":"primary","domain":"microsoft.ai"},{"n":4,"title":"Neowin - MAI-Transcribe-2 beats OpenAI and Google at $0.10 per hour","url":"https://www.neowin.net/news/microsofts-mai-transcribe-2-model-beats-openai-and-google-while-costing-just-010-per-hour/","type":"press","group":"press","domain":"neowin.net"}],"official":3,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-09-29","orgs":["Microsoft"],"title":"Microsoft launches MAI-Transcribe-2, claiming the most accurate and cheapest speech recognition at $0.10/hour","summary":"On 2026-09-03 Microsoft AI released MAI-Transcribe-2, an in-house speech-to-text model for 60 languages with diarization and word timestamps, claiming #1 on FLEURS (5.2% average WER), ~10x faster processing than GPT-Transcribe, and a promotional price of $0.10 per audio hour in Azure Speech / Foundry.","key_facts":["Released 2026-09-03; public preview in Azure Speech (Fast Transcription API, enhancedMode model MAI-Transcribe-2)","60 languages (up from 43 in MAI-Transcribe-1.5); code-switching, automatic language ID","FLEURS: 5.2% average WER across 60 languages, 3.4% on the top 25 (Microsoft); #2 on Artificial Analysis WER leaderboard","Speed: 1 hour of audio in ~10 s; ~10x faster than GPT-Transcribe, 7x than Scribe v2, 5x than Gemini 3.5 (Microsoft)","New: speaker diarization, word-level timestamps, keyword biasing, verbatim/clean styles","Price: $0.10/hour promo through end of 2026 (MAI-Transcribe-1.5 was $0.36/hour)","Same day (2026-09-03) Microsoft also open-sourced VibeVoice-ASR-Streaming; Meta launched Muse Voice Transcribe"],"key_numbers":[],"tags":["microsoft","mai","speech-to-text","asr","transcription"],"science":null,"body_md":"## What happened\n\nThree months after MAI-Transcribe-1.5 debuted at Build, Microsoft AI shipped its second-generation transcription model,\nadding diarization and timestamps and expanding to 60 languages. It is available in Microsoft Foundry / Azure Speech,\nthe MAI Playground and OpenRouter (`microsoft/mai-transcribe-2`), and can also transcribe input audio in Azure Voice Live.\n\n## Why it matters\n\nSpeech-to-text prices collapsed in September 2026: MAI-Transcribe-2 ($0.10/hr promo), Grok Voice Transcribe 2.0\n($0.10/hr batch, 2026-09-18) and Meta's Muse Voice Transcribe ($0.18/hr, 2026-09-03) all undercut OpenAI's\nGPT-Transcribe ($0.27/hr) and whisper-1 ($0.36/hr). Accuracy and speed claims are Microsoft's own.","disputed":[],"related":[{"id":"2026-09-03-meta-muse-voice-transcribe","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-03-meta-muse-voice-transcribe/","date":"2026-09-03","date_precision":"day","short_title":"Meta launches Muse Voice Transcribe, its first real-time speech model on the Meta Model API","deck":null,"takeaway":"It extends Meta's paid-API push beyond text and images into speech, landing the same day as Microsoft's MAI-Transcribe-2 amid a September 2026 price war in speech-to-text.","category":"model-release","category_label":"Model releases","importance":3,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Confirmed"]},"sources":4,"official":3,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-09-30","orgs":["Meta"]},{"id":"2026-07-25-azure-realtime-voice-live","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-07-25-azure-realtime-voice-live/","date":"2026-07-25","date_precision":"day","short_title":"Microsoft makes its own Azure Realtime speech-to-speech model generally available in the Voice Live API","deck":null,"takeaway":"Microsoft now offers a first-party realtime voice model next to OpenAI's inside its own voice-agent platform.","category":"product","category_label":"Products","importance":2,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Confirmed"]},"sources":4,"official":4,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-09-29","orgs":["Microsoft"]},{"id":"2026-06-02-microsoft-mai-models-build-2026","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-06-02-microsoft-mai-models-build-2026/","date":"2026-06-02","date_precision":"day","short_title":"Microsoft launches seven in-house MAI models at Build 2026, led by MAI-Thinking-1","deck":null,"takeaway":"Coming weeks after the renegotiated OpenAI deal, the launch shows Microsoft hedging its OpenAI dependence with a first-party model family deployed across its biggest products.","category":"model-release","category_label":"Model releases","importance":4,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Confirmed"]},"sources":4,"official":2,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-09-29","orgs":["Microsoft"]}],"people":[],"posts":[],"videos":[],"models":[{"id":"mai-transcribe-2","name":"MAI-Transcribe-2","url":"https://postcutoff.com/m/mai-transcribe-2/"}],"changes":[{"date":"2026-09-29","type":"edit","text":"Linked the Azure Realtime / Voice Live entry"},{"date":"2026-09-29","type":"filed","text":"Created"}],"provenance":{"agents":[{"model":"Claude Opus 5.5","maker":"Anthropic","tool":"Claude Code"}],"filed":"2026-09-29","run":null,"sources_read":null,"updated":"2026-09-29","human_review":null,"version":{"date":"2026-10-04"}},"gaps":[{"model_id":"gpt-6-astra","name":"GPT-6 Astra","cutoff":"2026-04","days_after":126,"in_training_data":false},{"model_id":"claude-opus-5-5","name":"Claude Opus 5.5","cutoff":"2026-06","days_after":65,"in_training_data":false},{"model_id":"gemini-4-hydrogen","name":"Gemini 4 Hydrogen","cutoff":"2026-03","days_after":156,"in_training_data":false},{"model_id":"grok-4-7","name":"Grok 4.7","cutoff":"2026-05","days_after":95,"in_training_data":false}],"short_url":null}