Microsoft launches MAI-Transcribe-2: 411x realtime, lowest market price

Microsoft AI launched the speech-to-text model MAI-Transcribe-2 on Sept 3, announced by Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman, simultaneously appearing on Artificial Analysis' non-streaming ASR leaderboard. Available via Microsoft Foundry and OpenRouter, it enters the top tier on accuracy, speed and price, with the lowest pricing in the market, and is widely seen as a direct challenge to OpenAI, Google and ElevenLabs.

Confirmed

• Accuracy: AA-WER of 2.0%, second on the Artificial Analysis leaderboard behind Alibaba's Fun-Realtime-ASR-preview; per altryne and emmanuelvivier, it ranks first across 60 languages on FLEURS with an average WER of 5.2%.
• Speed: 411x realtime; Suleyman says it is 10x faster than GPT-Transcribe and 5x faster than Gemini 3.5. Altryne's hands-on test transcribed 90 minutes of audio in about 15 seconds.
• Pricing: $0.10/hour via Microsoft Foundry ($1.67 per 1,000 minutes), the lowest in the market, below competitors like ElevenLabs; per VentureBeat (via MichaelFNunez), the price holds through 2026 and Microsoft claims it outperforms Gemini 3.5 Transcribe and GPT-Transcribe.
• Availability: Beyond Microsoft Foundry, MAI-Transcribe-2 is on OpenRouter supporting 60 languages, automatic language detection, mixed Chinese-English, speaker diarization and word-level timestamps; altryne reports accuracy clearly better than most prior models.
• Background: Per luisdans, the model comes from Microsoft's internal MAI team and already powers products like BizChat; Microsoft executives amplified VentureBeat coverage highlighting its cost-performance balance, and the team is soliciting user feedback.

Why it matters

• The speech transcription market is heating up: Microsoft's combination of near-top accuracy, extreme inference speed and dominant pricing pressures OpenAI, Google and ElevenLabs, plus rivals like Alibaba's Fun-Realtime-ASR.
• At $1.67 per 1,000 minutes, it dramatically lowers the barrier for large-scale transcription (podcasts, meetings, subtitles) and may accelerate a price war.
• OpenRouter availability plus 60-language support, diarization and word-level timestamps lower developer friction and help it spread quickly across the ecosystem.

2026-09-03 ~ 2026-09-05 · 13 related posts

Full story(2 episodes)→

• Episode 1: Microsoft launches MAI-Transcribe-2: 411x realtime, lowest market price(2026-09-03, 13 posts)
• Episode 2: Microsoft's MAI-Transcribe-2 Hits 1M Requests in 5 Days on OpenRouter(2026-09-11, 2 posts)

• Microsoft's MAI-Transcribe-2 hits 2.0% WER at 411x real time for $1.67 per 1,000 minutes — ArtificialAnlys · 2026-09-03
• Microsoft's MAI-Transcribe-2 hits ASR leaderboard at $0.10/hour, far below rivals — ArtificialAnlys · 2026-09-03
• Microsoft's MAI-Transcribe-2 undercuts OpenAI, Google and ElevenLabs on price and speed — MichaelFNunez · 2026-09-04
• [source] Microsoft's MAI-Transcribe 2 tops FLEURS, transcribes 90 minutes of audio in 15 seconds — altryne · 2026-09-04
• Microsoft launches MAI-Transcribe-2, claiming 10x speed of GPT-Transcribe — ZacharyHuang12 · 2026-09-04
• Microsoft's MAI-Transcribe-2 draws attention for cost-performance balance — luisdans · 2026-09-05
• Microsoft launches MAI-Transcribe-2, a faster, cheaper and more accurate speech model — emmanuelvivier · 2026-09-05
• Microsoft Launches MAI-Transcribe-2, Tops FLEURS Across 60 Languages With 5.2% WER — emmanuelvivier · 2026-09-05

5 near-duplicate retellings: ArtificialAnlys · mustafasuleyman · mustafasuleyman · altryne · MichaelFNunez