Microsoft on Thursday launched three new foundational AI models it built entirely in-house — a state-of-the-art speech transcription system, a voice generation engine, and an upgraded image creator — marking the most concrete evidence yet that the $3 trillion software giant intends to compete directly with OpenAI , Google , and other frontier labs on model development, not just distribution. The trio of models — MAI-Transcribe-1 , MAI-Voice-1 , and MAI-Image-2 — are available immediately through Microsoft Foundry and a new MAI Playground . They span three of the most commercially valuable modalities in enterprise AI: converting speech to text, generating realistic human voice, and creating images.…