Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools Public Preview

We are happy to introduce AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools, a new set of insights that shows how publisher content appears across Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing, and select partner integrations. For the first time, you can understand how often your content is cited in generative answers, with clear visibility into which URLs are referenced and how citation activity changes over time.

Extending Search Insights to AI Answers

Bing Webmaster Tools has long helped website owners understand indexing, crawl health, and search performance. AI Performance extends those insights to AI-generated answers by showing where and how content from your site is referenced as a source across AI experiences.

As AI becomes a more common way people discover information, visibility is not only about blue links. It is also about whether your content is cited and referenced when AI systems generate answers. This release is an early step toward Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) tooling in Bing Webmaster Tools, helping publishers understand how their content participates in AI-driven experiences.

AI Performance Dashboard: Visibility Across AI Experiences

The AI Performance dashboard provides a consolidated view of when your site is cited in AI answers.

What the dashboard measures

Total Citations

Shows the total number of citations that are displayed as sources in AI-generated answers during the selected time frame. This highlights how often your content is referenced by AI systems, without indicating placement or presentation within a specific answer.

Average Cited Pages

Shows the average number of unique pages from your site that are displayed as sources in AI-generated answers per day over the selected time range. Because the data is aggregated across supported AI surfaces, average cited pages reflect overall citation patterns and does not indicate ranking, authority, or the role of any page within an individual answer.

Grounding queries

Shows the key phrases the AI used when retrieving content that was referenced in AI-generated answers. The data shown represents a sample of overall citation activity. We will continue to refine this metric as additional data is processed.

Page-level citation activity

Shows citation counts for specific URLs from your site, making it easy to see which individual pages are most often referenced across AI-generated answers during the selected date range. This reflects how often pages are cited, not page importance, ranking, or placement.

Visibility trends over time

The timeline shows how citation activity for your site changes over time across supported AI experiences, making it easier to spot trends at a glance.

Important Note: Bing respects all content owner preferences expressed through robots.txt and other supported control mechanisms.

Using AI Performance Insights in Bing Webmaster Tools

By reviewing cited pages and grounding query phrases, AI Performance insights help clarify your content visibility in AI-generated answers.

These insights can help you:

• Validate which pages are already being used as references in AI answers.
  
   
• Identify content that appears frequently across AI answers.
  
   
• Spot opportunities to improve clarity, structure, or completeness on pages that are indexed but less frequently cited.

Using These Insights to Improve Content

Once you understand which pages and topics are being cited, you can use those signals to guide content improvements.

• Strengthen depth and expertise
  
  Pages cited for specific grounding query phrases often reflect clear subject focus and domain expertise. Deepening coverage in related areas can reinforce authority.
  
   
• Improve structure and clarity
  
  Clear headings, tables, and FAQ sections help surface key information and make content easier for AI systems to reference accurately.
  
   
• Support claims with evidence
  
  Examples, data, and cited sources help build trust when content is reused in AI-generated answers.
  
   
• Keep content fresh and accurate
  
  Regular updates help ensure AI systems reference the most current version of your content.
  
   
• Reduce ambiguity across formats
  
  Align text, images, and video so they consistently represent the same entities, products, or concepts.

For deeper guidance on structuring content to improve inclusion in AI-generated answers, see Optimizing Your Content for Inclusion in AI Search Answers.

Keeping Content Fresh with IndexNow

Accurate and up to date content is important for inclusion and citation in AI-generated answers. IndexNow helps keep information fresh across search and AI experiences by notifying participating search engines whenever content is added, updated, or removed.

By enabling faster discovery of content changes, IndexNow helps ensure that AI systems reference the most current version of a page when generating answers. If you’re not already using IndexNow, go to to get started.

Local Business Information and AI Visibility

For local businesses, accurate business information is especially important when AI experiences surface answers to location-based queries.

In addition to using Bing Webmaster Tools, businesses can register with Bing Places for Business to help ensure that key details such as address, hours, and contact information remain current and eligible for inclusion in AI-generated responses.

Evolving AI Performance with the Webmaster Community

AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools marks an important step toward greater transparency between AI systems and the open web. As we expand these insights, we’ll continue working with publishers and the webmaster community to improve inclusion, attribution, and visibility across both search results and AI experiences.

We look forward to partnering with you as we evolve these capabilities and continue building tools that support discovery in the next generation of search and AI experiences.

Krishna Madhavan, Meenaz Merchant, Fabrice Canel, Saral Nigam

Product Managers, Microsoft AI