# Microsoft Releases MAI-Transcribe-2: Fastest, Cheapest Speech-to-Text Model

> Microsoft has released MAI-Transcribe-2, and its pitch is refreshingly concrete: it claims to be the fastest, most accurate, and cheapest speech-to-text model available right now. The company says it runs about 10 times faster than OpenAI's GPT-Transcribe and roughly 7 times faster than ElevenLabs Scribe v2, while topping the FLEURS multilingual benchmark with a 5.2 percent average word-error rate. Under the hood it supports 60 languages with automatic detection and code-switching, so it can follow a speaker who slides between languages mid-sentence. It also handles the features that make transcripts genuinely useful, including speaker identification, word-level timing, and terminology biasing for names and jargon. The number that will get attention is the price, set at 0.10 dollars per hour of audio through a promotion running to December 2026. Cheap, fast transcription is one of the quiet workhorses of applied AI, feeding meeting notes, captioning, and search, and aggressive pricing like this tends to push the whole market down. Whether the accuracy holds up outside benchmarks is the open question, but the direction is clear.

_Section: [Daily AI Updates](https://www.wortins.com/daily-ai) · Source: Microsoft AI · Published Sunday, September 6, 2026_

## Wortins' read

Microsoft has released MAI-Transcribe-2, and its pitch is refreshingly concrete: it claims to be the fastest, most accurate, and cheapest speech-to-text model available right now. The company says it runs about 10 times faster than OpenAI's GPT-Transcribe and roughly 7 times faster than ElevenLabs Scribe v2, while topping the FLEURS multilingual benchmark with a 5.2 percent average word-error rate. Under the hood it supports 60 languages with automatic detection and code-switching, so it can follow a speaker who slides between languages mid-sentence. It also handles the features that make transcripts genuinely useful, including speaker identification, word-level timing, and terminology biasing for names and jargon. The number that will get attention is the price, set at 0.10 dollars per hour of audio through a promotion running to December 2026. Cheap, fast transcription is one of the quiet workhorses of applied AI, feeding meeting notes, captioning, and search, and aggressive pricing like this tends to push the whole market down. Whether the accuracy holds up outside benchmarks is the open question, but the direction is clear.

## Source

[Read the full story at Microsoft AI](https://microsoft.ai/news/mai-transcribe-2-is-the-fastest-most-accurate-and-cheapest-speech-recognition-model-in-the-world/)

## Related coverage

- [Top AI spenders cut per-employee costs by nearly 10 percent in August](https://www.wortins.com/story/top-ai-spenders-cut-per-employee-costs-by-nearly-10-percent--b31ffb0b) — [The Decoder](https://the-decoder.com/top-ai-spenders-cut-per-employee-costs-by-nearly-10-percent-in-august/)
- [Paris-based Arlequin AI, which is developing proprietary models based on topological neural networks, raised a €28M Series A co-led by redalpine and OTB (Tamara Djurickovic/Tech.eu)](https://www.wortins.com/story/paris-based-arlequin-ai-which-is-developing-proprietary-mode-48952d84) — [Techmeme](https://www.techmeme.com/260910/p15#a260910p15)
- [OpenAI launches ChatGPT Images 2.5 with faster editing](https://www.wortins.com/story/openai-launches-chatgpt-images-2-5-with-faster-editing-07e86379) — [TestingCatalog](https://www.testingcatalog.com/openai-launches-chatgpt-images-2-5-with-faster-editing/)
- [Microsoft has new AI privacy rules for schools](https://www.wortins.com/story/microsoft-has-new-ai-privacy-rules-for-schools-6e0b8ab0) — [The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/policy/992359/microsoft-aft-schools-ai-privacy)
- [Clearview AI Is Testing an AI Tool That Would Let Cops Unearth Your Life Online](https://www.wortins.com/story/clearview-ai-is-testing-an-ai-tool-that-would-let-cops-unear-8c573d0e) — [Wired](https://www.wired.com/story/clearview-ai-is-testing-an-ai-tool-that-lets-cops-instantly-unearth-your-online-activity/)
- [Powering AI is an architecture problem](https://www.wortins.com/story/powering-ai-is-an-architecture-problem-15281f16) — [MIT Technology Review](https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/10/1141649/powering-ai-is-an-architecture-problem/)

---

_Curated and written by [Wortins](https://www.wortins.com) — The daily AI briefing. Every story links to its original source; the "Wortins read" on each is our own original analysis. [About Wortins & our editorial approach](https://www.wortins.com/about)._