{"schema":"postcutoff/model@1","as_of":"2026-10-25T23:49:00+01:00","url":"https://postcutoff.com/m/mai-image-2-6/","md":"https://postcutoff.com/m/mai-image-2-6/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":"mai-image-2-6","name":"MAI-Image-2.6","org":"Microsoft","family":"MAI-Image","released":"2026-09-04","status":"preview","type":"image-gen","modality_in":["text","image"],"modality_out":["image"],"open_weights":false,"model_license":"proprietary","context_window":null,"max_output":null,"knowledge_cutoff":null,"pricing":{"text_input":5,"image_input":8,"image_output":38,"unit":"USD per 1M tokens (OpenRouter listing, provider Azure); Artificial Analysis estimates ~$38.9 per 1,000 images at 1024x1024","source":"https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/images/models/microsoft/mai-image-2.6-20260904/endpoints"},"price_line":"$5 text in, $38 image out per 1M tokens","access":[{"provider":"Microsoft Foundry (Foundry Models sold by Azure)","model_id":"MAI-Image-2.6","endpoint":"https://<resource-name>.services.ai.azure.com/mai/v1/images/generations","docs":"https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/foundry/foundry-models/how-to/use-foundry-models-mai-image"},{"provider":"Microsoft Foundry (image edits)","model_id":"MAI-Image-2.6","endpoint":"https://<resource-name>.services.ai.azure.com/mai/v1/images/edits","docs":"https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/foundry/foundry-models/how-to/use-foundry-models-mai-image"},{"provider":"OpenRouter","model_id":"microsoft/mai-image-2.6","endpoint":"https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/images","url":"https://openrouter.ai/microsoft/mai-image-2.6"},{"provider":"Web app (MAI Playground)","url":"https://playground.microsoft.ai/"}],"capabilities":[{"name":"Bing web grounding","detail":"web_grounding: true lets the model retrieve current information from Bing Search and use it as context for real-world entities, places and events (MAI-Image-2.6 and -Flash only).","first":false,"discovered":"launch","source":"https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/foundry/foundry-models/how-to/use-foundry-models-mai-image"},{"name":"Model-chosen aspect ratio","detail":"auto_aspect_ratio: true lets the model pick the output aspect ratio from the prompt and input images; output up to 2,359,296 px total (1536x1536 equivalent), minimum 768 px per side.","first":false,"discovered":"launch","source":"https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/foundry/foundry-models/how-to/use-foundry-models-mai-image"},{"name":"Multi-image reference editing","detail":"Edits API takes up to five JPEG/PNG reference images and combines people, products, styles and scenes; precise local edits (object removal, inpainting, text updates) that preserve layout.","first":false,"discovered":"launch","source":"https://microsoft.ai/news/pushing-the-quality-cost-frontier-with-mai-image-2-6/"}],"entry":"2026-09-04-microsoft-mai-image-2-6","notes":"Artificial Analysis text-to-image leaderboard (read 2026-10-25): #5, Elo 1166, listed release Aug 2026, $38.9 per 1k images (https://artificialanalysis.ai/text-to-image/arena/leaderboard-text). AA image-editing leaderboard: tied 3-6, Elo 1151 (https://artificialanalysis.ai/image/leaderboard/editing). Foundry model version 2026-07-31, Global Standard deployment, public preview; PNG output only; English prompts; 32k-token prompt limit; rate limits 6-36 RPM by tier. OpenRouter versioned id microsoft/mai-image-2.6-20260904. No official Azure price page was found: token prices are from OpenRouter's Azure-provider listing. Some secondary sources date a first announcement to 2026-08-10 (unverified). Photorealistic edits of minors blocked by default.","verified":"2026-10-25","body_md":"Microsoft AI's flagship in-house image model (diffusion-based), for generation and controllable editing, with Bing grounding.\n\n```bash\ncurl -X POST \"https://$RESOURCE.services.ai.azure.com/mai/v1/images/generations\" \\\n  -H \"Content-Type: application/json\" -H \"api-key: $AZURE_API_KEY\" \\\n  -d '{\"model\":\"<your-deployment-name>\",\"prompt\":\"A poster of a lighthouse at dawn\",\"width\":1024,\"height\":1024,\"web_grounding\":false}' \\\n| jq -r '.data[0].b64_json' | base64 --decode > output.png\n```\n\nSources:\n- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/foundry/foundry-models/how-to/use-foundry-models-mai-image\n- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/foundry/foundry-models/concepts/models-sold-directly-by-azure\n- https://microsoft.ai/news/pushing-the-quality-cost-frontier-with-mai-image-2-6/\n- https://microsoft.ai/models/mai-image-2-6/\n- https://microsoft.ai/pdf/MAI-Image-2.6-Model-Card.pdf\n- https://openrouter.ai/microsoft/mai-image-2.6","page_url":"https://postcutoff.com/m/mai-image-2-6/","standing":{"kind":"image generation","newer_count":6,"newer":[{"id":"flux-3-image-klein","name":"FLUX 3 Image Klein","org":"Black Forest Labs","released":"2026-10-15","page_url":"https://postcutoff.com/m/flux-3-image-klein/"},{"id":"krea-3","name":"Krea 3 (Fast / High / Ultra modes)","org":"Krea","released":"2026-10-15","page_url":"https://postcutoff.com/m/krea-3/"},{"id":"gemini-nano-banana-2-1","name":"Nano Banana 2.1 (Gemini Nano Banana 2.1)","org":"Google DeepMind","released":"2026-10-06","page_url":"https://postcutoff.com/m/gemini-nano-banana-2-1/"},{"id":"qwen-image-2-1","name":"Qwen-Image-2.1","org":"Alibaba (Qwen)","released":"2026-09-20","page_url":"https://postcutoff.com/m/qwen-image-2-1/"},{"id":"gpt-image-2-5-flare","name":"GPT Image 2.5 Flare","org":"OpenAI","released":"2026-09-08","page_url":"https://postcutoff.com/m/gpt-image-2-5-flare/"}],"before":null,"after":null,"weights":"closed","licence":"proprietary","licence_permissive":false,"summary":"Closed weights; access is hosted only."}}