Microsoft today launched AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools in beta. AI Performance lets you see where, and how often, your content is cited in AI-generated answers across Microsoft Copilot, Bing’s AI summaries, and select partner integrations, the company said.
- AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools shows which URLs are cited, which queries trigger those citations, and how citation activity changes over time.
- Search Engine Land first reported on Jan. 27 that Microsoft was testing the AI Performance report.
What’s new. AI Performance is a new, dedicated dashboard inside Bing Webmaster Tools. It tracks citation visibility across supported AI surfaces. Instead of measuring clicks or rankings, it shows whether your content is used to ground AI-generated answers.
- Microsoft framed the launch as an early step toward Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) tooling, designed to help publishers understand how their content shows up in AI-driven discovery.
What it looks like. Microsoft shared this image of AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools:
What the dashboard shows. The AI Performance dashboard introduces metrics focused specifically on AI citations:
- Total citations: How many times a site is cited as a source in AI-generated answers during a selected period.
- Average cited pages: The daily average number of unique URLs from a site referenced across AI experiences.
- Grounding queries: Sample query phrases AI systems used to retrieve and cite publisher content.
- Page-level citation activity: Citation counts by URL, highlighting which pages are referenced most often.
- Visibility trends over time: A timeline view showing how citation activity rises or falls across AI experiences.
These metrics only reflect citation frequency. They don’t indicate ranking, prominence, or how a page contributed to a specific AI answer.
Why we care. It’s good to know where and how your content gets cited, but Bing Webmaster Tools still won’t reveal how those citations translate into clicks, traffic, or any real business outcome. Without click data, publishers still can’t tell if AI visibility delivers value.
How to use it. Microsoft said publishers can use the data to:
- Confirm which pages are already cited in AI answers.
- Identify topics that consistently appear across AI-generated responses.
- Improve clarity, structure, and completeness on indexed pages that are cited less often.
The guidance mirrors familiar best practices: clear headings, evidence-backed claims, current information, and consistent entity representation across formats.
What’s next. Microsoft said it plans to “improve inclusion, attribution, and visibility across both search results and AI experiences,” and continue to “evolve these capabilities.”
Microsoft’s announcement. Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools Public Preview
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