MAI-Thinking-1 is one of seven new models announced at Build 2026.
MAI-Thinking-1 is one of seven new models announced at Build 2026.
by
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge
is a senior reporter covering technology, gaming, and more. He joined The Verge in 2019 after nearly two years at Techmeme.
Microsoft announced a bunch of new in-house AI models at Build 2026, including a new “flagship” model: MAI-Thinking-1. It’s an ambitious step into model development for Microsoft, which introduced its initial in-house models last year — before then, it had relied on OpenAI’s models. The two companies recently renegotiated their deal to loosen ties.
According to Microsoft, MAI-Thinking-1 is a “medium-sized model” that “matches leading models” on “key” software engineering benchmarks. Microsoft says the company “trained it from the ground up on clean data, without distillation from third-party models.”
As for other models announced today, they’re focused on image generation, transcription, voice, and coding.
MAI-Image 2.5 and the flash version can do text-to-image and image editing. MAI-Transcribe-1.5 is “five times faster than competing models.” MAI-Voice-2 and the flash version of that model (which Microsoft says is “coming soon”) add 15 new languages and new options for voices. The new coding model, MAI-Code-1-Flash, is “inference-efficient” and is integrated into GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio Code.
Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.
The Verge Daily
A free daily digest of the news that matters most.