Microsoft AI has pushed its image-generation model further up a leaderboard it has been climbing for months. The company says MAI-Image-2.6 now sits at No. 2 on the Arena text-to-image leaderboard, gaining 79 Elo points over its predecessor, MAI-Image-2.5, with text rendering alone up 91 Elo. Microsoft AI published the category-by-category comparison alongside the announcement.
The new version places above models from Meta, Google and xAI on that same leaderboard, according to Microsoft AI. Arena’s own scoring still shows OpenAI’s GPT Image 2 holding the top spot, so the gain narrows a gap rather than taking the lead outright.
AI Insiders previously noted MAI-Image-2.5 breaking into the leaderboard’s top three. The move to No. 2 continues that climb rather than marking a new category of model. Arena rankings shift whenever a lab ships an update, so today’s position is a snapshot, not a fixed hierarchy. Microsoft says MAI-Image-2.6 is live on Arena now, with access through MAI Playground and Microsoft Foundry expected within the week.
Microsoft AI announced the MAI-Image-2.6 leaderboard result in August 2026.
