The Inference Report
April 19, 2026
AI Labs — News
MiniMax released Speech 2.8, marking an incremental update to its voice synthesis capability. The move signals continued investment in audio generation as a competitive surface, though the minimal fanfare around the release suggests either modest technical gains or strategic positioning ahead of larger announcements. Voice remains a crowded space with established players from OpenAI, Google, and others already shipping production models. What's notable is not the release itself but the pattern it reflects: smaller labs continuing to iterate on modalities beyond text, betting that audio quality and latency matter enough to justify the engineering cost. Whether Speech 2.8 represents a material improvement over the prior version, or simply maintenance of parity, the headline doesn't disclose. Either way, MiniMax is signaling it remains in the game.
Sloane Duvall
MiniMax
AI Labs — Models
A curated reference of models from major AI labs, with open/closed weight status, input modalities, and context window size. American labs tend towards closed weights models and Chinese labs tend toward open weights models.
AmazonClosed Weights
- Amazon: Nova 2 LiteTextVisionVideoFiles1M
- Amazon: Nova Premier 1.0TextVision1M
Open Weights
None
AnthropicClosed Weights
- Anthropic: Claude Haiku 4.5VisionText200K
- Anthropic: Claude Opus 4VisionTextFiles200K
- Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.1VisionTextFiles200K
- Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5FilesVisionText200K
- Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.6TextVision1M
- Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.6 (Fast)TextVision1M
- Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.7TextVision1M
- Anthropic: Claude Sonnet 4VisionTextFiles1M
- Anthropic: Claude Sonnet 4.5TextVisionFiles1M
- Anthropic: Claude Sonnet 4.6TextVision1M
Open Weights
None
Google DeepMindClosed Weights
- Google: Gemini 2.5 FlashFilesVisionTextAudioVideo1M
- Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash LiteTextVisionFilesAudioVideo1M
- Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite Preview 09-2025TextVisionFilesAudioVideo1M
- Google: Gemini 2.5 ProTextVisionFilesAudioVideo1M
- Google: Gemini 2.5 Pro Preview 05-06TextVisionFilesAudioVideo1M
- Google: Gemini 2.5 Pro Preview 06-05FilesVisionTextAudio1M
- Google: Gemini 3 Flash PreviewTextVisionFilesAudioVideo1M
- Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite PreviewTextVisionVideoFilesAudio1M
- Google: Gemini 3.1 Pro PreviewAudioFilesVisionTextVideo1M
- Google: Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview Custom ToolsTextAudioVisionVideoFiles1M
- Google: Lyria 3 Clip PreviewTextVision1M
- Google: Lyria 3 Pro PreviewTextVision1M
- Google: Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image)VisionText33K
- Google: Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image Preview)VisionText66K
- Google: Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Pro Image Preview)VisionText66K
Open Weights
- Google: Gemma 3n 4BText33K
- Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B VisionTextVideo262K
- Google: Gemma 4 31BVisionTextVideo262K
MetaClosed Weights
None
Open Weights
- Meta: Llama Guard 4 12BVisionText164K
OpenAIClosed Weights
- OpenAI: GPT AudioTextAudio128K
- OpenAI: GPT Audio MiniTextAudio128K
- OpenAI: GPT-4o AudioAudioText128K
- OpenAI: GPT-5TextVisionFiles400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5 ChatFilesVisionText128K
- OpenAI: GPT-5 CodexTextVision400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5 ImageVisionTextFiles400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5 Image MiniFilesVisionText400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5 MiniTextVisionFiles400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5 NanoTextVisionFiles400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5 ProVisionTextFiles400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.1VisionTextFiles400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.1 ChatFilesVisionText128K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.1-CodexTextVision400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.1-Codex-MaxTextVision400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.1-Codex-MiniVisionText400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.2FilesVisionText400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.2 ChatFilesVisionText128K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.2 ProVisionTextFiles400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.2-CodexTextVision400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.3 ChatTextVisionFiles128K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.3-CodexTextVisionFiles400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.4TextVisionFiles1M
- OpenAI: GPT-5.4 MiniFilesVisionText400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.4 NanoFilesVisionText400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.4 ProTextVisionFiles1M
- OpenAI: o3 Deep ResearchVisionTextFiles200K
- OpenAI: o3 ProTextFilesVision200K
- OpenAI: o4 Mini Deep ResearchFilesVisionText200K
Open Weights
- OpenAI: gpt-oss-120bText131K
- OpenAI: gpt-oss-20bText131K
- OpenAI: gpt-oss-safeguard-20bText131K
xAIClosed Weights
- xAI: Grok 3Text131K
- xAI: Grok 3 MiniText131K
- xAI: Grok 4VisionTextFiles256K
- xAI: Grok 4 FastTextVisionFiles2M
- xAI: Grok 4.1 FastTextVisionFiles2M
- xAI: Grok 4.20TextVisionFiles2M
- xAI: Grok 4.20 Multi-AgentTextVisionFiles2M
- xAI: Grok Code Fast 1Text256K
Open Weights
None
Mistral AIClosed Weights
- Mistral: Codestral 2508Text256K
- Mistral: Devstral MediumText131K
- Mistral: Mistral Large 3 2512TextVision262K
- Mistral: Mistral Medium 3TextVision131K
- Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1TextVision131K
- Mistral: Mistral Small CreativeText33K
Open Weights
- Mistral: Devstral 2 2512Text262K
- Mistral: Devstral Small 1.1Text131K
- Mistral: Ministral 3 14B 2512TextVision262K
- Mistral: Ministral 3 3B 2512TextVision131K
- Mistral: Ministral 3 8B 2512TextVision262K
- Mistral: Mistral Small 3.2 24BVisionText128K
- Mistral: Mistral Small 4TextVision262K
- Mistral: Voxtral Small 24B 2507TextAudio32K
AI21 LabsClosed Weights
None
Open Weights
- AI21: Jamba Large 1.7Text256K
Alibaba (Qwen)Closed Weights
- Qwen: Qwen Plus 0728Text1M
- Qwen: Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)Text1M
- Qwen: Qwen3 Coder FlashText1M
- Qwen: Qwen3 Coder PlusText1M
- Qwen: Qwen3 MaxText262K
- Qwen: Qwen3 Max ThinkingText262K
- Qwen: Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-02-15TextVisionVideo1M
- Qwen: Qwen3.5-FlashTextVisionVideo1M
- Qwen: Qwen3.6 PlusTextVisionVideo1M
Open Weights
- Qwen: Qwen3 14BText41K
- Qwen: Qwen3 235B A22BText131K
- Qwen: Qwen3 235B A22B Instruct 2507Text262K
- Qwen: Qwen3 235B A22B Thinking 2507Text262K
- Qwen: Qwen3 30B A3BText41K
- Qwen: Qwen3 30B A3B Instruct 2507Text262K
- Qwen: Qwen3 30B A3B Thinking 2507Text131K
- Qwen: Qwen3 32BText41K
- Qwen: Qwen3 8BText41K
- Qwen: Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B InstructText160K
- Qwen: Qwen3 Coder 480B A35BText262K
- Qwen: Qwen3 Coder NextText262K
- Qwen: Qwen3 Next 80B A3B InstructText262K
- Qwen: Qwen3 Next 80B A3B ThinkingText131K
- Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B InstructTextVision262K
- Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B ThinkingTextVision131K
- Qwen: Qwen3 VL 30B A3B InstructTextVision131K
- Qwen: Qwen3 VL 30B A3B ThinkingTextVision131K
- Qwen: Qwen3 VL 32B InstructTextVision131K
- Qwen: Qwen3 VL 8B InstructVisionText131K
- Qwen: Qwen3 VL 8B ThinkingVisionText131K
- Qwen: Qwen3.5 397B A17BTextVisionVideo262K
- Qwen: Qwen3.5-122B-A10BTextVisionVideo262K
- Qwen: Qwen3.5-27BTextVisionVideo262K
- Qwen: Qwen3.5-35B-A3BTextVisionVideo262K
- Qwen: Qwen3.5-9BTextVisionVideo262K
ByteDanceClosed Weights
- Seed: Seed 1.6VisionTextVideo262K
- Seed: Seed 1.6 FlashVisionTextVideo262K
- Seed: Seed-2.0-LiteTextVisionVideo262K
- Seed: Seed-2.0-MiniTextVisionVideo262K
Open Weights
None
DeepSeekClosed Weights
None
Open Weights
- DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3.1Text33K
- DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3.1 TerminusText164K
- DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3.2Text164K
- DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3.2 ExpText164K
- DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3.2 SpecialeText164K
- DeepSeek: R1 0528Text164K
MiniMaxClosed Weights
- MiniMax: MiniMax M1Text1M
- MiniMax: MiniMax M2-herText66K
Open Weights
- MiniMax: MiniMax M2Text197K
- MiniMax: MiniMax M2.1Text197K
- MiniMax: MiniMax M2.5Text197K
- MiniMax: MiniMax M2.7Text197K