# MAI-Image-2.6 launches at No. 2 on Arena ahead of Google, Meta and xAI | Microsoft AI

It improves +79 Elo over MAI-Image-2.5 overall, including +91 for text rendering, and is available on Arena today.

- Ranked second on Arena's text-to-image leaderboard, ahead of models from Meta, Google, and xAI.
- MAI-Image-2.6 improves on MAI-Image-2.5 in every measured Arena category.
- Gains include stronger text rendering, better portraits and 3D imagery, and more polished commercial and photorealistic outputs.
- Available now on Arena; coming later this week to MAI Playground and soon across Microsoft Foundry and other products.

## Why it matters

Image-generation users and developers can now try a Microsoft model that ranks above Meta, Google, and xAI on Arena's text-to-image leaderboard.

## Sources

- [Microsoft AI: MAI-Image-2.6 launches at No. 2 on Arena ahead of Google, Meta and xAI | Microsoft AI](https://microsoft.ai/news/mai-image-2-6-launches-at-no-2-on-arena-ahead-of-google-meta-and-xai)

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Summarized by dstilled on 2026-08-10. https://dstilled.ai/story/c968d299-f60b-4833-9006-00b19d513422