United Kingdom, Aug. 29 -- Microsoft has started testing a new in-house artificial intelligence model designed to strengthen its position in the generative AI race.

The company announced that it is previewing its MAI-Voice-1 model, which is being trialled with select Copilot users and developers.

According to Microsoft, MAI-Voice-1 has been built from the ground up by its own research teams and could bring "more reliable, nuanced and efficient" outputs compared to earlier systems.

In a blog post, Microsoft said: "MAI-Voice-1 is a lightning-fast speech generation model, with an ability to generate a full minute of audio in under a second on a single GPU, making it one of the most efficient speech systems available today."

The company e...