As of: 2026-11-13 13:49 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-transcribe-2/

# MAI-Transcribe-2

Microsoft, MAI-Transcribe family. Status: preview. Type: speech and audio. Released: 2026-09-03.

## How to call it

| Provider | Model id | Endpoint | Docs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Azure Speech in Microsoft Foundry (Fast Transcription API, enhancedMode) | `MAI-Transcribe-2` | https://{resource}.cognitiveservices.azure.com/speechtotext/transcriptions:transcribe?api-version=2025-10-15 | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ai-services/speech-service/mai-transcribe |
| Azure Speech (previous version) | `MAI-Transcribe-1.5` |  | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ai-services/speech-service/mai-transcribe |
| Azure Voice Live (input transcription) | `MAI-Transcribe-2` |  | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ai-services/speech-service/mai-transcribe |
| OpenRouter | `microsoft/mai-transcribe-2` | https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/audio/transcriptions |  |
| Web app (MAI Playground) |  |  | https://playground.microsoft.ai/ |

## Pricing

- Per hour: $0.10
- Unit as published: USD per hour of audio (limited-time promotional price through end of 2026; MAI-Transcribe-1.5 was $0.36/hr)
- Source: https://microsoft.ai/models/mai-transcribe-2/
- Last checked: 2026-09-29

## Specs

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

## Where it stands

- Newer speech and audio models in the registry since its release: 28. The 5 newest:
  - NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Transcribe (30B-A4B) (2026-10-28) https://postcutoff.com/m/nemotron-3-5-transcribe/
  - Hy-SimulMT-30B-A3B (2026-10-22) https://postcutoff.com/m/hy-simulmt-30b-a3b/
  - Eleven Realtime v1 Max / Mini (2026-10-20) https://postcutoff.com/m/eleven-realtime-v1-max/
  - Voxtral Mini Transcribe 3 (+ Mini Transcribe Realtime 3) (2026-10-20) https://postcutoff.com/m/voxtral-mini-transcribe-3/
  - Voxtral Small Transcribe 3 (2026-10-20) https://postcutoff.com/m/voxtral-small-transcribe-3/
- Before it from Microsoft: MAI-Voice-2 / MAI-Voice-2-Flash (2026-06-02) https://postcutoff.com/m/mai-voice-2/
- After it from Microsoft: MAI-Voice-2.1 / MAI-Voice-2.1-Flash (2026-10-01) https://postcutoff.com/m/mai-voice-2-1/
- Closed weights; access is hosted only.

## What stands out

- #1 on FLEURS across 60 languages (claimed): Microsoft reports 5.2% average WER over 60 FLEURS languages (3.4% on top-25) and #2 on the Artificial Analysis WER leaderboard. Source: https://microsoft.ai/news/mai-transcribe-2-is-the-fastest-most-accurate-and-cheapest-speech-recognition-model-in-the-world/
- Very fast batch transcription: Claims ~10x faster than GPT-Transcribe (1 hour of audio in ~10 s), 7x vs Scribe v2, 5x vs Gemini 3.5. Source: https://microsoft.ai/news/mai-transcribe-2-is-the-fastest-most-accurate-and-cheapest-speech-recognition-model-in-the-world/
- Diarization, word timestamps, keyword biasing, clean/verbatim styles: New in v2: speaker diarization, word-level timestamps, phrase-list biasing, code-switching (e.g. Hinglish) and verbatim vs clean transcripts. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ai-services/speech-service/mai-transcribe

## Notes

Public preview in Azure Speech. MAI-Transcribe-1.5 (Build 2026-06-02, 43 languages, $0.36/hr) remains available; MAI-Transcribe-1 deprecated 2026-08-20. Standard (post-promo) price not published. Input WAV/MP3/FLAC. Model card: https://microsoft.ai/pdf/MAI-Transcribe-2-Model-Card.pdf. Benchmarks are Microsoft-reported.

```bash
curl 'https://YOUR_RESOURCE.cognitiveservices.azure.com/speechtotext/transcriptions:transcribe?api-version=2025-10-15' \
  -H "Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key: $SPEECH_KEY" -F 'audio=@meeting.wav' \
  -F 'definition={"enhancedMode":{"enabled":true,"model":"MAI-Transcribe-2"},"diarization":{"enabled":true}}'
```

Sources: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ai-services/speech-service/mai-transcribe · https://microsoft.ai/models/mai-transcribe-2/ · https://microsoft.ai/news/mai-transcribe-2-is-the-fastest-most-accurate-and-cheapest-speech-recognition-model-in-the-world/

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