Definition
The AI Performance report is a section of Bing Webmaster Tools that shows how often a site's pages are cited as sources in AI-generated answers across Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing and select partner integrations. Microsoft launched it in public preview on February 10, 2026 and described it as an early step toward GEO tooling (Bing Webmaster blog).
Where Google's generative AI performance report counts impressions, Bing counts citations, and it also exposes the phrases the AI searched for. The launch version had five views:
- Total citations: how many times your content was displayed as a source in AI answers during the selected period.
- Average cited pages: the average number of unique pages from your site cited per day.
- Grounding queries: the key phrases the AI used when retrieving content it then cited. Microsoft notes this is a sample of overall citation activity.
- Page-level citation activity: citation counts per URL.
- Visibility trends: a timeline of citation activity.
In June 2026 Microsoft added four preview features. Intents sorts grounding queries into categories such as Informational, Commercial, Navigational, Research and Local. Topics groups related queries into themes. Citation Share gives the percentage of all citations shown for a grounding query that went to your site, which Microsoft frames as an observational metric that does not reveal competitor domains. Compare overlays a previous period on the current one.
On October 13, 2026 Microsoft added Topics Portfolio, a beta tab next to Citations & Pages (announcement). For each topic it shows Topic Size (approximate citations across all sites), Sites Cited and number of queries. Inside a topic, Your Grounding Queries lists where you already appear and Opportunity Queries lists queries where other sites are cited and yours is not, with volumes shown as ranges. Microsoft warns that topic labels are AI-generated, that smaller sites may not see the tab, and that branded competitor queries can show up as opportunities.
For GEO work this is one of the few places a search engine shows its own AI citation data, query phrases included. Start by confirming which pages Copilot and Bing actually cite, then check that those pages are current and accurate. Compare each page's grounding queries with the keywords it targets: a mismatch often reveals the passage the AI really uses. Opportunity Queries make good content briefs because they come from real grounding activity on Bing, and Compare lets you track citation share per query from one period to the next.
The report has gaps. There are no clicks or click-through rates, the partner integrations are not named individually, and grounding data is sampled. It also only covers Microsoft's surfaces, so it says nothing about citations in ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity. Because citations depend on what is in the Bing index, Microsoft recommends IndexNow to push updates quickly. To see the rest of the picture, teams pair it with prompt-level tracking of LLM citations in other engines; Promptwatch's Bing Webmaster Tools integration puts Bing's query and page stats next to that AI data.
Examples of Bing AI Performance Report
- A tax software company finds that the grounding query 'standard deduction 2026 married filing jointly' cites its calculator page more than its long guide, so it adds a short dated explanation above the calculator.
- A travel publisher uses Citation Share and Compare to see its share for 'best time to visit Lisbon' fall from one quarter to the next after a competitor publishes month-by-month weather tables.
- A running-shoe retailer opens Topics Portfolio and sees a competitor's brand name listed among its Opportunity Queries, a known beta quirk, and filters those out before planning content.
- A B2B software vendor sees several grounding queries classified under the Commercial intent and creates comparison pages for the products those queries mention.
