Microsoft AI says its MAI-Image-2.7-Preview has launched as an image-editing model, and TestingCatalog flagged its arrival on Arena and MAI Playground. Microsoft also says its MAI-Image-2.6 models are now generally available in Microsoft Foundry.

What 2.7 changes

Microsoft says 2.7 improves on 2.6 across all 10 use cases and all 7 editing actions that Artificial Analysis evaluates. Its strongest lead is scene and style, where it scores 24 Elo ahead of the next-best model. Microsoft also says 2.7 reaches the category frontier in enhancement and restoration, reasoning-based edits, scene and style, and text or symbol editing.

The launch starts with editing only. Microsoft says text-to-image generation is coming soon.

Benchmark placements

Artificial Analysis puts MAI-Image-2.7-Preview at #2 on its AA-Image-Editing v2.1 board, close behind GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst (max). It ranks #1 on four editing actions: Scene & Style Edit, Text or Symbol Edits, Reasoning-Based Edit, and Enhancement & Restoration. Its largest gains over 2.6 are Composition & Framing (+57 Elo), Text or Symbol Edits (+49) and Scene & Style Edit (+48).

On Arena, 2.7-Preview lands at #3 overall in Image Edit Arena with 1470 points. That is 45 points above MAI-Image-2.6, which sat at #7. It places #3 in Product, Branding & Commercial Design, #3 in Portraits, #3 in Photorealistic & Cinematic Imagery, and #4 in Text Rendering.

Neowin reports the Artificial Analysis Elo scores as 1,193 for MAI-Image-2.7 Preview, 1,199 for GPT Image 2.5 Sunburst, 1,182 for GPT Image 2.5 Flare and 1,151 for MAI-Image-2.6. On those numbers, 2.7 sits between the two GPT Image 2.5 variants.

Foundry and pricing for 2.6

Microsoft's Community Hub post, dated October 27, 2026, confirms that MAI-Image-2.6 and MAI-Image-2.6-Flash are generally available in Foundry. At the public-preview stage, Microsoft listed MAI-Image-2.6 at $5 per 1M tokens for text input, $8 for image input and $38 for image output. Flash was listed at $1.75 for text input and $2.50 for image input, per its earlier preview pricing post.

A third-party write-up of the GA move, from Superpower Daily, reports Flash image output at $19 per 1M tokens, against $38 for MAI-Image-2.6. The same write-up says Microsoft has said MAI-Image-2.6 is coming to Adobe Firefly soon, with no date. The $19 figure comes from that write-up. For background on Microsoft's other MAI models, see our earlier report on MAI-Transcribe-2-Streaming.

Access to 2.7

Microsoft lists Arena, Artificial Analysis and MAI Playground as places to try 2.7's editing. A WindowsForum write-up reports that Artificial Analysis labels the 2.7 preview 'No API available'.

Image shared by @testingcatalog on X
Image shared by @testingcatalog on X

Image credit: @testingcatalog on X

Our read: 2.7 is a playground and leaderboard release for now. Production teams on Foundry have the firmer news, since 2.6 and Flash are generally available.

Sources