Microsoft has a new image generation model, and it debuted near the top of the leaderboard. MAI-Image-2.5, announced June 2 by Microsoft AI’s Superintelligence team, ranks second in image editing and third in text-to-image generation on the Artificial Analysis Image Arena, a benchmark built on blind human preference votes.
What the numbers actually say
In text-to-image, MAI-Image-2.5 scores between 1253 and 1276 on the Elo scale, placing it third overall. In image editing, it posts an Elo score of 1251, good enough for second place.
The gains over its predecessor, MAI-Image-2, are measurable and specific. MAI-Image-2.5 records a 107-point improvement in text rendering and a 90-point jump in cartoon, anime, and fantasy imagery on benchmark tests.
Microsoft released the model in two configurations. The standard MAI-Image-2.5 is the high-fidelity option, priced at $47 per million image output tokens. The MAI-Image-2.5-Flash variant trades some ceiling for speed, coming in at $19.50 per million tokens.
