What is the best AI image generation model right now?

As of 14 Sep 2026, GPT Image 2 is the RightSignal pick for best image generation (held since 21 Apr 2026). Still top of both Arena boards: #1 on text-to-image at 1382, 50 clear of MAI-Image-2.6 on 1332, and #1 on single-image edit at 1461, 22 clear of MAI-Image-2.6 and Grok Imagine Image 2.0 (low), which are level on 1439. It also leads Artificial Analysis's text-to-image arena at 1,172, 27 ahead of MAI-Image-2.6 and 45 ahead of Reve 2.1, though on that site's editing arena it has slipped to third at 1,117, behind MAI-Image-2.6 (1,129) and MAI-Image-2.6-Flash (1,120). It has held the generation crown since its 21 April launch, on the strength of prompt adherence, photorealism and text rendering.

Pick Best image generation

GPT Image 2

As of 14 Sep 2026, GPT Image 2 is the RightSignal pick for best image generation.

Still top of both Arena boards: #1 on text-to-image at 1382, 50 clear of MAI-Image-2.6 on 1332, and #1 on single-image edit at 1461, 22 clear of MAI-Image-2.6 and Grok Imagine Image 2.0 (low), which are level on 1439.

View on provider site What’s changing

Current pick

since 21 Apr 2026

146

days as pick

Next best (challenger)

GPT-Image-2.5-Sunburst

Tops Arena on both the text-to-image board (1421 vs 1381 for GPT Image 2) and the single-image edit board (1520 vs 1461), and leads Artificial Analysis's editing arena at 1,167, well clear of MAI-Image-2.6 on 1,124. On Artificial Analysis's text-to-image arena it is second on 1,179, eight behind stablemate GPT-Image-2.5-Flare (1,187) and eight ahead of GPT Image 2 (high) on 1,171. Both Arena scores are still marked preliminary on a few thousand votes, and at $210.70 per 1,000 images there are far cheaper options for editing at volume.

Why it’s the challenger

Reign history

146days
current reign

3challenges
held off

21 APR 2026became pick

0previous
reigns

Last reviewed: 13 Sep 2026 Reviews are continuous. This pick can change when the evidence changes.

Why GPT Image 2 is the pick

Still top of both Arena boards: #1 on text-to-image at 1382, 50 clear of MAI-Image-2.6 on 1332, and #1 on single-image edit at 1461, 22 clear of MAI-Image-2.6 and Grok Imagine Image 2.0 (low), which are level on 1439.
It also leads Artificial Analysis's text-to-image arena at 1,172, 27 ahead of MAI-Image-2.6 and 45 ahead of Reve 2.1, though on that site's editing arena it has slipped to third at 1,117, behind MAI-Image-2.6 (1,129) and MAI-Image-2.6-Flash (1,120).
It has held the generation crown since its 21 April launch, on the strength of prompt adherence, photorealism and text rendering.

Judged on photoreal quality · editability · text rendering · instruction following

Evidence

The sources behind this title’s record.

Vendor numbers are treated as claims until independently reproduced — how we judge. Structured benchmark comparisons are on the roadmap.

Caveats & challengers

Editing is no longer a GPT Image 2 story: on Arena's single-image edit board it sits third on 1461, behind GPT-Image-2.5-Sunburst (1520) and GPT-Image-2.5-Flare (1491), with Grok Imagine Image 2.0 (low) fourth on 1439 and MAI-Image-2.6 fifth on 1434.
Artificial Analysis's editing arena has it fifth on 1,114, behind Sunburst (1,167), Flare (1,145), MAI-Image-2.6 (1,124) and MAI-Image-2.6-Flash (1,117), with Muse Image a point back on 1,113.
On price it is now level with the newer OpenAI models rather than uniquely dear at $211 per 1,000 images against $210.70 for both GPT-Image-2.5 variants, though still far above $67 for Nano Banana 2 and $38.90 for MAI-Image-2.6.

Challenger GPT-Image-2.5-Sunburst

Challenger MAI-Image-2.6 (preview)

Fourth on Artificial Analysis's text-to-image arena at 1,144, behind GPT-Image-2.5-Flare (1,187), GPT-Image-2.5-Sunburst (1,179) and GPT Image 2 (high) (1,171), and third on that site's editing arena at 1,124 — ten ahead of GPT Image 2 (high) on 1,114, but well adrift of Sunburst on 1,167. On Arena it is fourth in text-to-image on 1331 and fifth in single-image edit on 1434, behind Grok Imagine Image 2.0 (low) on 1439 and both GPT-Image-2.5 models. It reached public preview on Microsoft Foundry in early September and Artificial Analysis lists it at $38.90 per 1,000 images, so it remains much the cheaper buy.

At a glance

Title: Best image generation
Licence: proprietary
Pick since: 21 Apr 2026
Last reviewed: 13 Sep 2026
Title holders to date: 9
Official page: developers.openai.com/api/docs/mode...

Title history

Every change, on the record.

View full changelog

Pick 21 Apr 2026 – presentGPT Image 2 Current

146 days
as pick

Pick 26 Feb 2026 – 21 Apr 2026Nano Banana 2

Pro-tier instruction following and text rendering at Flash latency and price, rolled straight into the Gemini app, Search AI Mode and Lens.

54 days
as pick

Pick 16 Dec 2025 – 26 Feb 2026GPT Image 1.5

Fixed the premature cropping and warm colour cast that made GPT Image 1 output obvious, and ran roughly four times faster at 20% lower AP…

72 days
as pick

Pick 26 Aug 2025 – 16 Dec 2025Nano Banana

Google shipped character consistency and multi-image fusion that actually survived repeated edits — the thing that had been blocking real…

112 days
as pick

Pick 25 Mar 2025 – 26 Aug 2025GPT-4o image generation

Autoregressive rather than diffusion, it finally made text rendering and image-to-image editing dependable — 700 million images in the fi…

154 days
as pick

Pick 30 Oct 2024 – 25 Mar 2025Recraft V3

The first time the top spot was settled by a public blind-vote board rather than vibes — #1 on the Artificial Analysis image arena at 117…

146 days
as pick

Pick 21 Dec 2023 – 30 Oct 2024Midjourney v6

Trained from scratch over nine months, v6 closed the prompt-adherence gap while keeping the aesthetic lead; the v6.1 web release held the…

314 days
as pick

Pick 1 Oct 2023 – 21 Dec 2023DALL-E 3

The first model that reliably drew what you actually asked for — and the ChatGPT integration meant iterating in plain language instead of…

81 days
as pick

Pick 22 Jun 2023 – 1 Oct 2023Midjourney v5.2 101 days
as pick