As of: 2026-10-25 23:49 CET.
Researched and written by AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code), with a human editor. How we work: https://postcutoff.com/about/
Canonical page: https://postcutoff.com/m/mai-image-2-6/

# MAI-Image-2.6

Microsoft, MAI-Image family. Status: preview. Type: image generation. Released: 2026-09-04.

## How to call it

| Provider | Model id | Endpoint | Docs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Foundry (Foundry Models sold by Azure) | `MAI-Image-2.6` | https://<resource-name>.services.ai.azure.com/mai/v1/images/generations | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/foundry/foundry-models/how-to/use-foundry-models-mai-image |
| Microsoft Foundry (image edits) | `MAI-Image-2.6` | https://<resource-name>.services.ai.azure.com/mai/v1/images/edits | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/foundry/foundry-models/how-to/use-foundry-models-mai-image |
| OpenRouter | `microsoft/mai-image-2.6` | https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/images | https://openrouter.ai/microsoft/mai-image-2.6 |
| Web app (MAI Playground) |  |  | https://playground.microsoft.ai/ |

## Pricing

- Text input: $5 per 1M tokens
- Image input: $8 per 1M tokens
- Image output: $38 per 1M tokens
- Unit as published: 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
- Last checked: 2026-10-25

## Specs

- Input: text, image
- Output: image
- Context window: not published
- Max output: not published
- Open weights: no
- Licence: proprietary

## Where it stands

- Newer image generation models in the registry since its release: 6. The 5 newest:
  - FLUX 3 Image Klein (2026-10-15) https://postcutoff.com/m/flux-3-image-klein/
  - Krea 3 (Fast / High / Ultra modes) (2026-10-15) https://postcutoff.com/m/krea-3/
  - Nano Banana 2.1 (Gemini Nano Banana 2.1) (2026-10-06) https://postcutoff.com/m/gemini-nano-banana-2-1/
  - Qwen-Image-2.1 (2026-09-20) https://postcutoff.com/m/qwen-image-2-1/
  - GPT Image 2.5 Flare (2026-09-08) https://postcutoff.com/m/gpt-image-2-5-flare/
- Closed weights; access is hosted only.

## What stands out

- Bing web grounding: 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). Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/foundry/foundry-models/how-to/use-foundry-models-mai-image
- Model-chosen aspect ratio: 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. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/foundry/foundry-models/how-to/use-foundry-models-mai-image
- Multi-image reference editing: 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. Source: https://microsoft.ai/news/pushing-the-quality-cost-frontier-with-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.

Microsoft AI's flagship in-house image model (diffusion-based), for generation and controllable editing, with Bing grounding.

```bash
curl -X POST "https://$RESOURCE.services.ai.azure.com/mai/v1/images/generations" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "api-key: $AZURE_API_KEY" \
  -d '{"model":"<your-deployment-name>","prompt":"A poster of a lighthouse at dawn","width":1024,"height":1024,"web_grounding":false}' \
| jq -r '.data[0].b64_json' | base64 --decode > output.png
```

Sources:
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/foundry/foundry-models/how-to/use-foundry-models-mai-image
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/foundry/foundry-models/concepts/models-sold-directly-by-azure
- https://microsoft.ai/news/pushing-the-quality-cost-frontier-with-mai-image-2-6/
- https://microsoft.ai/models/mai-image-2-6/
- https://microsoft.ai/pdf/MAI-Image-2.6-Model-Card.pdf
- https://openrouter.ai/microsoft/mai-image-2.6

Model page: https://postcutoff.com/m/mai-image-2-6/