New Delhi, Oct. 14 -- Microsoft has unveiled its first natively built artificial intelligence image generation model, MAI-Image-1 on Monday in a blog post. The model made its public debut on the LMArena forum, entering the top 10 text-to-image models. Can it become a direct competitor to Google's Gemini Nano Banana? Only time will tell, but the early indications suggest the tech giant is positioning itself for a serious run in the AI creative space.

Since the start of 2025, Microsoft has been focused on developing in-house generative AI models under the Microsoft AI (MAI) label. This initiative runs separately from Azure's enterprise-focused offerings. Earlier this year, the company introduced MAI-DxO, an AI model designed to diagnose pa...