By Paul Thurrott
Publication Date: 2026-10-02 16:20:00
Microsoft AI announced the availability of its latest MAI-Transcribe and MAI-Voice AI models for building voice agents.
“MAI-Transcribe and MAI-Voice models [offer] accurate, fast, low cost, and chart-topping audio understanding and generation for building the best conversational voice agents,” the Microsoft AI announcement explains. “We’re also announcing two new voice models: MAI‑Voice‑2.1 and our blazing-fast variant, MAI‑Voice‑2.1‑Flash. Together, they give users the fast and fluid building blocks to create conversational experiences, with no compromise on accuracy or voice quality.”
Microsoft AI says that its new MAI-Transcribe-2-Streaming model is top-rated for both final and partial transcripts on Artificial Analysis, and that it delivers low-latency, real-time transcripts in 60 languages with continuous language detection.
“Rather than waiting for someone to finish speaking before returning text, it produces its first hypotheses (known…
