New Microsoft AI models bring faster transcription and multilingual voices

MAI-Transcribe-2-Streaming is available at an introductory price of $0.54 per hour of audio through the end of the year.

MAI-Voice-2.1: Seamlessly support multilingual experiences

With the launch of MAI-Voice-2.1, we offer our strongest multilingual text-to-speech model yet.

We've expanded the model to support 23 languages and 26 locales, while enabling one single "voice" to use all languages with a truly native accent. Just ask it to speak English… then Mandarin… then German… and the speaker stays unmistakably the same, naturally picking up the local parlance, rather than dragging one accent across languages.

That means your brand can keep a single voice everywhere: a tutoring app can switch languages mid-lesson without swapping teachers, and a multilingual assistant can reply in whatever language it's addressed in, all while still sounding like the same voice.

And it's priced at $22 per 1M characters.

MAI-Voice-2.1-Flash: Built for volume

MAI-Voice-2.1-Flash supports the same languages, and cross-language speakers, as MAI-Voice-2.1. But it's been leveled up for high-volume, latency-sensitive workloads. It can generate 45s of audio, withan end-to-end latency,of a mere 150ms.

It delivers 55% faster model inference and is ~60% cheaper than comparable models, with best-in-class pricing of $15 per 1M characters.

That combination of latency, quality, and cost efficiency makes Flash a natural partner for MAI-Transcribe-2-Streaming when building natural, low-latency voice agent experiences.

Both voice models support cloning across all supported languages, using just a few seconds of reference audio, making it easier for customers to use their brands' voices. At the same time, they have built-in consent guardrails that prevent misuse.