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Live in Foundry: MAI-Image-2-Efficient, 40% faster render…

by ailona•

MAI-Image-2-Efficient offers flagship image quality with 22% faster renders, 4× efficiency, and ~41% lower pricing. Built for production scale, it suits product shots, marketing, UI mockups, and real-time workflows. Available now in Microsoft Foundry and MAI Playground.

MAI-Image-2-Efficient is a new text-to-image model optimized for production workloads. It delivers flagship image quality with substantially lower cost and faster renders.

Main feature/change and impact

MAI-Image-2-Efficient reduces compute cost and latency while preserving flagship quality. Microsoft reports it is 22% faster and four times more efficient than MAI-Image-2. Pricing is nearly 41% lower for token-based usage, with $5 per 1M text input tokens and $19.50 per 1M image output tokens. This lowers per-image spend and improves throughput for high-volume pipelines.

Practical implications

Teams can use MAI-Image-2-Efficient for batch generation, real-time workflows, and UI asset production. It targets product shots, marketing creatives, and labeled assets that need consistent output. Use MAI-Image-2 when highest fidelity and complex in-image text are required. The efficient model enables cost-controlled scale across Copilot, Bing, Foundry, and MAI Playground integrations.
“MAI-Image-2-Efficient shows strong progress in prompt fidelity and creative usability across a range of workflows.” – Vanessa Salvo, Principal Product Manager, Shutterstock
MAI-Image-2-Efficient is available now in Microsoft Foundry and MAI Playground with no waitlist. Teams should benchmark both MAI-Image-2 and the Efficient variant against their latency and fidelity targets. Plan migration for volume workloads first, and reserve MAI-Image-2 for final-deliverable cases.

Key points from the article:

  • 22% faster median render time than prior MAI-Image-2.
  • Approximately 41% lower pricing per token for outputs.
  • 4× improved efficiency on throughput per GPU at 1024×1024.
  • Targets production workflows: product shots, marketing, UI assets.
  • Available now in Microsoft Foundry and MAI Playground.

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