MICROSOFT LAUNCHES MAI-IMAGE-2-EFFICIENT, A CHEAPER AND FASTER AI IMAGE MODEL

Summary from the TLDR Design newsletter

MAI-Image-2-Efficient is a faster, cheaper variant of its flagship image model, priced 41% lower and running 22% faster with 4x greater GPU throughput. The release — available immediately in Microsoft Foundry and MAI Playground — arrives as the Microsoft-OpenAI relationship visibly strains, with the MAI model family representing Microsoft's push toward AI self-sufficiency. Beyond cost savings, the model's speed and pricing are designed to support agentic AI workflows in which image generation is called thousands of times programmatically each day.