Bing Webmaster Tools has opened a public preview of a new section called AI Performance, giving site owners their first aggregated look at how their pages show up as sources inside AI-generated answers. The report covers citations inside Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing, and select partner integrations.
What does AI Performance add to existing reports?
Bing Webmaster Tools has long reported indexing status, crawl health, and search performance. AI Performance extends that reporting to AI surfaces by surfacing the URLs that get cited as sources when an AI system composes an answer. The Microsoft team frames the addition as an early step toward Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) tooling inside the platform.
What does the AI Performance dashboard measure?
The dashboard groups AI citation activity into several signals:
- Total Citations: The total count of times a site was shown as a source in AI answers during the selected period. Bing notes this measures how often content is referenced, not where it appears inside a specific answer.
- Average Cited Pages: The average number of unique pages from the site shown as sources per day over the range. The figure aggregates across supported AI surfaces and does not indicate ranking or the role of any single page.
- Grounding Queries: The key phrases the AI used when retrieving content that ended up cited. The data is a sample of overall citation activity, and Microsoft plans to refine the metric as more data is processed.
- Page-Level Citation Activity: Citation counts broken down to individual URLs so publishers can see which pages are referenced most often. The metric tracks frequency, not importance or placement.
- Visibility Trends Over Time: A timeline of citation activity across supported AI experiences for spotting patterns at a glance.
Bing also reminds publishers that it respects all content owner preferences expressed through robots.txt and other supported control mechanisms.
How can publishers use the new insights?
Reviewing cited pages and grounding query phrases can help publishers validate which URLs already serve as AI references, identify content that appears regularly across AI answers, and find opportunities to tighten structure or clarify pages that are indexed but rarely cited.
The next paragraph lists the Microsoft team’s suggestions for responding to these patterns.
- Add more detailed content on the topic. Pages cited for specific grounding phrases usually show a clear subject focus. Including related topics can strengthen a page’s subject focus.
- Improve structure and clarity. Clear headings, tables, and FAQ sections make key points easier for AI systems to reference accurately.
- Back claims with evidence. Examples, data, and cited sources help build trust when content is reused in AI answers.
- Keep content fresh and accurate. Regular updates may help AI systems reference the most current version of a page.
- Reduce ambiguity across formats. Aligning text, images, and video so they represent the same entities, products, or concepts improves consistency.
Bing points publishers to its existing guide, "Optimizing Your Content for Inclusion in AI Search Answers," for a deeper treatment of these practices.
How does IndexNow help keep content fresh?
Up to date content matters for both search and AI citations. IndexNow notifies participating search engines whenever pages are added, updated, or removed, which speeds discovery of changes and helps AI systems reference the latest version of a page when generating answers. Publishers who have not set it up yet can start at the IndexNow website.
Why does this matter for local businesses?
For local businesses, accurate business data is particularly important when AI surfaces answer location-based queries. Alongside Bing Webmaster Tools, Bing Places for Business lets businesses keep details such as address, hours, and contact information current so they remain eligible for inclusion in AI responses.
What comes next?
Microsoft positions AI Performance as a starting point for greater transparency between AI systems and the open web. The team says it will continue working with publishers and the webmaster community to refine inclusion, attribution, and visibility reporting across both search results and AI experiences as the capabilities evolve.
The post is credited to product managers Krishna Madhavan, Meenaz Merchant, Fabrice Canel, and Saral Nigam on the Microsoft AI team.
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