Microsoft's self-trained AI models like MAI-Thinking and MAI-Code now available

During the Microsoft Build 2026 conference Microsoft made a lot of announcements regarding AI, but one that I found most interesting is the fact that Microsoft is no longer relying on others to train their AI models. Instead, Microsoft has now a division called Microsoft AI, or just MAI for short, that now trains their own models.

Apparently, these models are also very promising functionality-wise, and seem to fare well in various tests, such as those at Arena.ai's Leaderboard.

Here's a list of the models announced at Build:

• MAI-Image-2.5
• MAI-Transcribe-1.5
• MAI-Voice-2
• MAI-Thinking-1
• MAI-Code-1-Flash

You can see the announcement transcript here.

It's great to see coding-specific models also in this list. Let's see what these models become in the future.