Microsoft Cuts AI Image Model Price by 41%

Microsoft has launched MAI-Image-2-Efficient, a faster and cheaper version of its flagship text-to-image model. Priced at $5 per million text input tokens and $19.50 per million image output tokens, it represents a 41% cost reduction. The model is available immediately with no waitlist. The new model runs 22% faster than its predecessor and delivers 4x greater GPU throughput efficiency on NVIDIA H100 hardware. Microsoft claims it outperforms competing models from Google. The release signals Microsoft's push to build an AI stack independent of OpenAI.