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Model Pareto

MAI-Image-2.6 vs MAI-Image-2.5

In image generation, MAI-Image-2.6 scores 75.3 and MAI-Image-2.5 60.9 on the 0–100 quality scale. MAI-Image-2.5 costs 1.2× as much as MAI-Image-2.6 ($0.048 vs $0.039 per image).
MAI-Image-2.6MAI-Image-2.5
Focus

Image generation: quality vs price

Compared models are ringed; the other 36 ranked here are greyed.

Lower price is better. Pareto frontier: Z-Image Turbo, Muse Image, MAI-Image-2.6-Flash, MAI-Image-2.6, GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst. 1 models are not plotted: Qwen-Image-2.1.

1 model with no price data — shown in the strip at the left edge

Qwen-Image-2.1

  • Best-value frontier (nothing is both cheaper and better)
  • Evidencestrong → weak
  • Estimated from other categories
  • MAI-Image-2.6
    Quality
    75.3
    Rank
    #4/38
    Price
    $0.039/img
    Speed
    —

    vs MAI-Image-2.5: +14.5 quality · 0.81× price

  • MAI-Image-2.5
    Quality
    60.9
    Rank
    #10/38
    Price
    $0.048/img
    Speed
    28s

    vs MAI-Image-2.6: −14.5 quality · 1.2× price

Overview

Metric
MAI-Image-2.6
MAI-Image-2.5
Lab
Microsoft AI
Microsoft AI
Released
Aug 10, 2026
Jun 2, 2026
Weights
Proprietary
Proprietary
Price per image
$0.039Best
$0.048
Time per image
—
28s

Quality by category

0–100 within each category (100 = best tracked model). Rank is among all models ranked there. Click a row to focus it.

Metric
MAI-Image-2.6
MAI-Image-2.5
Image generation
75.3±3.2Best
#4/38Verifiedbest value
60.9±3.2
#10/38Verified

Image generation benchmarks

Rank among models with a published score, and the leaderboard around each model. ~ italic = no published score, estimated from related benchmarks.

Metric
MAI-Image-2.6
MAI-Image-2.5
AA Text-to-Image Arena
third-party
#5/351147BestVerified
  1. #1GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst1196
  2. #4Grok Imagine Image 2.01154
  3. #5MAI-Image-2.61147
  4. #6Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image)1122
artificialanalysis.ai · 2026-09-24
#9/351102Verified
  1. #1GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst1196
  2. #8GPT Image 1.51102
  3. #9MAI-Image-2.51102
  4. #10Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Pro Image)1101
artificialanalysis.ai · 2026-09-24
AA Image Editing Arena
third-party
#3/291135BestVerified
  1. #1GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst1181
  2. #2GPT Image 2.5 Flare1163
  3. #3MAI-Image-2.61135
  4. #4MAI-Image-2.6-Flash1125
artificialanalysis.ai · 2026-09-24
#7/291114Verified
  1. #1GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst1181
  2. #6Muse Image1117
  3. #7MAI-Image-2.51114
  4. #8Seedream 5.0 Pro1109
artificialanalysis.ai · 2026-09-24
LMArena Text-to-Image
third-party
#4/301334BestVerified
  1. #1GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst1423
  2. #3GPT Image 21381
  3. #4MAI-Image-2.61334
  4. #5Grok Imagine Image 2.01302
arena.ai · 2026-09-21
#9/301254Verified
  1. #1GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst1423
  2. #8Seedream 5.0 Pro1256
  3. #9MAI-Image-2.51254
  4. #9Qwen-Image-3.0-Pro1254
arena.ai · 2026-09-21
LMArena Image Edit
third-party
#5/241429BestVerified
  1. #1GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst1526
  2. #4Grok Imagine Image 2.01430
  3. #5MAI-Image-2.61429
  4. #6Muse Image1402
arena.ai · 2026-09-21
#7/241400Verified
  1. #1GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst1526
  2. #6Muse Image1402
  3. #7MAI-Image-2.51400
  4. #8Seedream 5.0 Pro1394
arena.ai · 2026-09-21
GenEval
day 0
~#2/4~87.7%Estimated
  1. #1HiDream-O1-Image90.0%
  2. ~#2MAI-Image-2.6Estimated87.7%
  3. #2Qwen-Image87.0%
estimated from related benchmarks
~#3/4~86.6%Estimated
  1. #1HiDream-O1-Image90.0%
  2. #2Qwen-Image87.0%
  3. ~#3MAI-Image-2.5Estimated86.6%
  4. #3Z-Image Turbo82.0%
estimated from related benchmarks
DPG-Bench
day 0
~#3/4~88.2%Estimated
  1. #1HiDream-O1-Image89.8%
  2. #2Qwen-Image88.3%
  3. ~#3MAI-Image-2.6Estimated88.2%
  4. #3Z-Image Turbo84.9%
estimated from related benchmarks
~#3/4~87.5%Estimated
  1. #1HiDream-O1-Image89.8%
  2. #2Qwen-Image88.3%
  3. ~#3MAI-Image-2.5Estimated87.5%
  4. #3Z-Image Turbo84.9%
estimated from related benchmarks