Microsoft announced MAI-Image-1, the first text-to-image generator designed and developed in-house. Microsoft is working closely with OpenAI, a significant move from the Satya Nadella-led company, which announced its first two in-house models in August.
“We trained this model with the goal of delivering real value to creators, and took great care to avoid repetitive or commonly stylized output. For example, we considered feedback from creative industry experts in favor of rigorous data selection and nuanced evaluation focused on tasks that closely reflect real-world creative use cases. This model is designed to offer true flexibility, visual variety, and practical value,” the company said.
Microsoft says it sought feedback from creative experts to avoid “repetitive or generally stylized output.” MAI-Image-1 is “great” for photorealistic images such as lightning and landscapes. It can process requests and generate images faster than the “big, slow model”. This model has already secured a place in the top 10 of LMArena.
MAI-Image-1 joins Microsoft’s other AI products: voice generator MAI-Voice-1 AI and chatbot MAI-1-preview. The company recently started using Anthropic’s AI models for some Microsoft 365 features and is making “significant investments” in training its own AI models, including MAI-Image-1. MAI-Image-1 will soon be available in Copilot and Bing Image Creator.
This release underscores Microsoft’s determination to establish its unique credentials as a top-tier AI model maker.
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