Anthropic · Microsoft · OpenAI · Gemini · Claude · Google · Decrypt
Microsoft Confirms Latest AI Models Overtook Claude, Google's Nano Banana
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On the first day of the annual Microsoft Build event on Tuesday, the Windows developer unveiled seven new AI models, claiming they outperformed Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Google's Nano Banana 2 in blind testing and image-editing benchmarks.
Key facts
- On the first day of the annual Microsoft Build event on Tuesday, the Windows developer unveiled seven new AI models, claiming they outperformed Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 4.6 and Google's Nano Banana
- According to Suleyman, MAI-Thinking-1 was preferred over Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 4.6 in blind tests conducted by independent evaluators
- Microsoft’s new model launch suggests a broader effort to build proprietary AI systems as it expands beyond its longstanding reliance on OpenAI technology, saying that MAI “delivered the highest win rate, outperforming GPT-5.5 on quality, while being 10x lower on cost
- Suleyman said the SWE Bench Pro result places the model "right alongside Opus 4.6 on one of the toughest coding benchmarks
Summary
Microsoft said its new MAI-Thinking-1 model outperformed Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 4.6 in blind evaluations and matched Claude Opus 4.6 on a leading coding benchmark. The company said its MAI-Image-2.5 models surpassed Google's Nano Banana 2 on image-editing leaderboards. The launch marks Microsoft's most ambitious effort yet to develop proprietary frontier AI models alongside its partnership with OpenAI. The claim comes as Microsoft attempts to establish itself as a frontier AI developer rather than solely OpenAI's largest backer and infrastructure provider.