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The AI Performance dashboard in Bing Webmaster Tools counts your site’s citations in Copilot, AI summaries in Bing and partners. In addition, it lists Bing grounding queries, the phrases the AI used to search for that content. But it doesn’t show clicks. Here’s where each data point lives and how to use it.
In short
- The AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools counts the citations your site gets in Copilot, AI summaries in Bing and partners.
- Bing grounding queries are the phrases the AI used to search for content, not the questions users asked.
- The report doesn’t show clicks, and Microsoft doesn’t say which partners count. So it can’t measure ChatGPT.
- The data exports to CSV and Excel, but history only covers the dashboard’s date ranges. So export it every month.
What is the AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools?
AI Performance is the Bing Webmaster Tools report that shows how your site appears in AI answers. It counts citations, lists the cited pages and shows grounding queries. In February 2026, Microsoft launched the Bing AI Performance report in public preview, as an early step toward GEO tools.
To open it, sign in to Bing Webmaster Tools and go to AI Performance for the site you want to check. In this guide, tab and metric names come from Microsoft’s documentation, which calls the citations and pages area Citations & Pages. Next to it, the Topics Portfolio tab, in beta, only shows up when there is enough data, according to the feature announcement.
The report only covers content that Bing can index, and Bing respects robots.txt, according to the help page. So a page that robots.txt blocks stays out of the count. Before you read the numbers, check the guide on how to index your site on Bing.
Which AIs does Bing Webmaster Tools cover: Copilot and ChatGPT?
According to the Bing help page, Bing Webmaster Tools measures citations in Microsoft Copilot, AI summaries in Bing and select partners. However, Microsoft doesn’t say who those partners are. So nothing in the Bing AI Performance report confirms that ChatGPT citations count.
The numbers also come combined, because Microsoft aggregates the data across all supported surfaces, as the report announcement says. In addition, the help page doesn’t describe a filter that separates Copilot from partners. In a Bing post, the company goes further:
“And today, Microsoft grounding powers nearly every major AI assistant in the market.”
Jordi Ribas, Corporate Vice President, Search & AI, Microsoft (2026)
Even so, Microsoft doesn’t say which of these assistants show up in the report.
For ChatGPT, then, the way to go is fixed prompts, explained in the guide on how to measure brand mentions and citations in AI. Bing’s role in ChatGPT search is in the guide on how ChatGPT chooses the sites it cites.
Which metrics does Bing AI Performance show?
The Bing AI Performance dashboard shows total citations, pages cited per day and the daily average of cited pages in the period. It also shows the list of pages, grounding queries and a timeline. According to the help page, none of these metrics measures ranking, authority or importance.
The documentation uses these names for the metrics:
- Total Citations: times your content showed up as a visible source in the period.
- Cited pages: unique pages cited on a given day.
- Average cited pages: daily average of unique pages cited.
- Pages: citations for each URL, that is, the pages the AI uses most as sources.
The page count, however, shows frequency, not the page’s role in the answer. Volume can change with user questions, your content and AI models. Still, the timeline doesn’t point to the cause of any change.
What are grounding queries?
Grounding queries are the key phrases the AI used to search for content it ended up citing, according to the Bing help page. In other words, they aren’t user questions or full prompts. Each phrase groups activity from several answers, and the number next to it shows how many times your site was a source for it.
For example, if your site is a source for answers about solar energy, citations may show up under phrases like “solar energy” or “solar panels” in the report. One phrase can lead to several pages, and one page can appear under several phrases. Each AI and each partner may also form the phrases in its own way. So don’t treat Bing grounding queries as exact keywords.
How to see the pages behind each grounding query
Since March 2026, Bing AI Performance has linked grounding queries to cited pages, according to Microsoft Advertising. Select a phrase to see its pages, or a page to see its phrases. Because the filter takes one at a time, export the data to cross-check the two lists.
Intents and Topics: the intent and theme of each query
In June 2026, Bing started to classify grounding queries by intent and by topic, in preview. On the help page, Intents uses labels such as Informational, Commercial, Comparison and Local, while Topics groups similar phrases into a broader theme. AI classifiers assign the labels, and they may not match how you read a query, especially when it’s ambiguous. A store, for example, can check whether it shows up in Commercial and Comparison queries.
What do Citation Share and Topics Portfolio show?
Citation Share shows the percentage of a query’s citations that went to your site. Topics Portfolio, on the other hand, shows the topics where your site appears and the size of each one, in beta since October 2026. So both show your site’s weight relative to the other cited sources.
A site can have many citations and still a small share when many sources split the same query. In addition, Citation Share doesn’t reveal the other sites or represent traffic share, according to the June announcement.
In Topics Portfolio, Bing Webmaster Tools groups grounding queries into topics. According to the announcement, the table has three columns with approximate values:
- Topic Size: total citations across all sites in the topic.
- Sites Cited: number of sites that appear, which signals the competition.
- Queries: number of distinct queries in the topic.
Below the table, a list the announcement calls Top Opportunity Queries shows queries where other sites appear and yours doesn’t, with volumes in ranges. However, the feature hides topics where your site has little presence. So a small site may see a short list or no feature at all. Sometimes, branded queries from competitors also show up as opportunities.
Does Bing AI Performance show clicks?
No. In Bing Webmaster Tools, citations only mean your content appeared as a visible source in answers from Copilot or another covered AI. According to the help page, a citation doesn’t represent traffic, clicks or engagement. So the report doesn’t tell you how many people reached your site from those answers.
To count visits from Copilot and other assistants, use GA4, as the guide on AI traffic in GA4 shows.
How do you filter, compare and export the data?
The AI Performance dashboard in Bing Webmaster Tools offers 7-day, 30-day and 3-month ranges, plus a custom range. It also filters by phrase or by page, compares two periods and exports the data to CSV and Excel, with the filter applied.
- Compare: overlays the previous period on the chart as a dashed line, or two ranges you pick by hand.
- Export: phrases with citation counts, citations by page and the time series.
Compare shows what changed between two periods, but it doesn’t explain why. Also, the Bing Webmaster API reference doesn’t list methods for citations or grounding queries. So the exported spreadsheet is how you bring the data into a dashboard.
What are the limits of the sample?
The numbers are a sample, which means they don’t log every citation. So rare citations may not show up, and totals can differ from one view to another. Bing refreshes the AI Performance dashboard daily, with a short delay, and may refine the data later.
The Bing help page lists other limits:
- Different windows: phrases and pages may come from samples of slightly different time windows. So the same phrase and page pair can show different numbers depending on the filter.
- Short history: the Bing AI Performance dashboard only keeps the ranges it offers.
- Indexable content: as in Bing search, only pages that Bing can index count.
If the report shows no grounding queries, the help page points to low citation activity. According to Microsoft, this is normal and doesn’t signal a penalty.
Bing Webmaster Tools vs Search Console: how do the AI reports compare?
The two reports measure different things. While the AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools counts citations in Copilot and partners, the Search Console generative AI report counts impressions. In other words, Google counts the times links to your site showed up in AI Overviews and AI Mode. So don’t add the numbers together.
| Point | Bing Webmaster Tools | Search Console |
|---|---|---|
| What it counts | Citations | Link impressions |
| Where | Copilot, Bing summaries and partners | AI Overviews and AI Mode |
| Queries | Grounding queries, sampled | No queries |
| Clicks | Not shown | Not in the AI report |
| Breakdowns | Page, query, intent and topic | Page, country, date and device |
| Export | CSV and Excel | Export button |
On Google’s side, the Search Console help page lists the AI report’s dimensions: page, country, date and device, with no queries. To find long, prompt-like questions in Google, use a regex filter in Search Console. Google’s counting rules are in the guide on AI data in Search Console.
How do you use the Bing AI Performance report in a monthly report?
Use Bing Webmaster Tools to see which pages and topics Copilot and partners already use as sources. Microsoft suggests confirming which pages AI answers cite and improving indexed pages with few citations. A monthly routine fits in five steps:
- Export the data at the start of the month: phrases, pages and the daily series for the last 30 days.
- Match phrases and pages in the spreadsheet to see which pages support each topic.
- List important pages with no citations. Check whether they’re in the index and then whether they answer clearly.
- Read intent, topic and Citation Share for the queries that matter to the business.
- Use Compare after you update a page, without treating the change as an effect of the update.
According to the help page, a page may go without citations when it’s less relevant, thin or out of date, or when other sources outperform it. In the client report, combine the Bing AI citations with GA4, Search Console and fixed prompts, and call them citations, not traffic. For what changes in SEO so a brand shows up in these answers, see the SEO and AI guide.
What we found when analyzing 8 pages on Bing AI Performance
We analyzed the 8 Portuguese-language pages that cover the report and came up in three searches. Only one warns that the report doesn’t show clicks, while another says the opposite. Likewise, only one says grounding queries come as a sample and that Microsoft doesn’t name the partners.
None mentions the export or the dashboard’s date ranges, and all of them predate Topics Portfolio. Also, two claim the report doesn’t cover ChatGPT, something Microsoft doesn’t say. Finally, one claims Compare shows the cause of changes, the opposite of what the Bing help page says.
Frequently asked questions
Not according to the current documentation. The Bing Webmaster API reference on Microsoft Learn doesn’t list methods for citations or grounding queries. So the way to go is to export the report data to CSV or Excel and bring the spreadsheet into the client’s dashboard.
No. Citation Share only shows your site’s share of the citations for a query, without revealing the other domains. Topics Portfolio, in beta, shows an approximate number of sites in each topic and the queries where other sites appear and yours doesn’t.
History only covers the ranges the dashboard offers: 7 days, 30 days, 3 months or a custom range within the available data. So export the report every month to build a long series and compare results over the year.
Want to know how your brand shows up in AI answers today?
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Main sources
- Bing Webmaster Tools help, AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools (2026).
- Bing Webmaster Blog, Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools Public Preview (2026).
- Microsoft Advertising, mapping between grounding queries and pages (2026).
- Bing Search Blog, New AI Visibility Insights in Bing Webmaster Tools (2026).
- Bing Webmaster Blog, Introducing Topics Portfolio (Beta) in AI Performance (2026).
- Bing Search Blog, Elevating the Role of Grounding on the AI Web (2026).
- Microsoft Learn, Bing Webmaster API reference (2023).
- Search Console Help, Generative AI performance report (2026).
