{"id":398788,"date":"2026-07-11T21:31:50","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T21:31:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bizscoreai.com\/blog\/bing-webmaster-tools-ai-performance-public-preview\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T06:25:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T06:25:21","slug":"bing-webmaster-tools-ai-performance-public-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bizscoreai.com\/blog\/bing-webmaster-tools-ai-performance-public-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"Bing Webmaster Tools Adds AI Performance Reports in Public Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Microsoft has opened public preview of <strong>AI Performance<\/strong> inside Bing Webmaster Tools, a new reporting section that tracks how a publisher&#8217;s pages show up as sources in AI-generated answers across Microsoft Copilot, Bing&#8217;s AI-generated summaries, and select partner integrations.<\/p>\n<h2>Why AI visibility needs its own report<\/h2>\n<p>Bing Webmaster Tools has historically given site owners insight into crawling, indexing, and traditional search performance. With AI becoming a routine path to information, citation in a generated answer matters alongside ranking in blue links. AI Performance is an early step toward Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) tooling inside Bing Webmaster Tools, aimed at showing publishers how their content participates in AI-driven experiences.<\/p>\n<h2>What does the AI Performance dashboard measure?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Total Citations:<\/strong> The number of times the site is displayed as a source in AI-generated answers during the chosen time frame. It counts citations, not placement inside any single answer.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Average Cited Pages:<\/strong> The average number of unique pages per day that appear as sources, aggregated across supported AI surfaces. It is not a measure of ranking or authority for any individual page.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Grounding Queries:<\/strong> Representative phrases that AI systems used when retrieving content that became a citation. Microsoft describes this as a sample of overall citation activity and notes the metric will be refined as more data is processed.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Page-level citation activity:<\/strong> Citation counts broken down by URL, so publishers can see which pages are referenced most often. Frequency is reported, not importance, ranking, or placement.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Visibility trends over time:<\/strong> A timeline of citation activity across supported AI surfaces, useful for spotting trends at a glance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Bing states the dashboard respects content owner preferences expressed through robots.txt and other supported control mechanisms.<\/p>\n<h2>How should publishers use the insights?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Validate existing citations:<\/strong> Confirm which pages are already being referenced in AI answers.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Spot frequent references:<\/strong> Identify content that appears often across AI responses.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Find improvement opportunities:<\/strong> Look at indexed pages that are rarely cited and consider changes to clarity, structure, or completeness.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Content improvement playbooks included in the post<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Deepen expertise:<\/strong> Pages cited for specific grounding query phrases often reflect clear subject focus, so expanding coverage in adjacent areas can reinforce authority.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Improve structure:<\/strong> Clear headings, tables, and FAQ sections help surface key information for AI systems to reference accurately.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Support claims with evidence:<\/strong> Examples, data, and cited sources help build trust when content is reused in AI-generated answers.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Keep content fresh:<\/strong> Regular updates help ensure AI systems reference the most current version of a page.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Reduce ambiguity across formats:<\/strong> Align text, images, and video so they consistently represent the same entities, products, or concepts.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Microsoft points publishers to its existing guide, <em>Optimizing Your Content for Inclusion in AI Search Answers<\/em>, for deeper structural advice.<\/p>\n<h2>How does IndexNow help with freshness for AI citations?<\/h2>\n<p>Microsoft ties AI Performance to IndexNow, the protocol that notifies participating search engines when content is added, updated, or removed. Faster discovery of changes helps ensure AI systems pull the most current version of a page when generating answers. Publishers who have not enabled IndexNow are directed to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.indexnow.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">indexnow.org<\/a> to get started.<\/p>\n<h2>What should local businesses do?<\/h2>\n<p>For businesses with a physical presence, accurate listings matter even more when AI experiences answer location-based queries. In addition to Bing Webmaster Tools, Microsoft recommends registering with Bing Places for Business so that address, hours, and contact details remain current and eligible for inclusion in AI-generated responses.<\/p>\n<h2>What comes next<\/h2>\n<p>Microsoft frames the public preview as a step toward greater transparency between AI systems and the open web, with further work planned around inclusion, attribution, and visibility across both search results and AI experiences. The team, Krishna Madhavan, Meenaz Merchant, Fabrice Canel, and Saral Nigam of Microsoft AI, invites publisher feedback as the feature evolves.<\/p>\n<h2>FAQ<\/h2>\n<h3>What is AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools?<\/h3>\n<p>AI Performance is a new reporting section in Bing Webmaster Tools, opened as a public preview by Microsoft. It tracks how a publisher&#8217;s pages show up as sources in AI-generated answers across Microsoft Copilot, Bing&#8217;s AI-generated summaries, and select partner integrations.<\/p>\n<h3>Which metrics does the AI Performance dashboard report?<\/h3>\n<p>The dashboard reports Total Citations, Average Cited Pages, Grounding Queries, page-level citation activity broken down by URL, and visibility trends over time across supported AI surfaces. Counts reflect citation frequency, not ranking or placement within any single answer.<\/p>\n<h3>Who at Microsoft is behind the AI Performance feature?<\/h3>\n<p>AI Performance is being developed by Microsoft AI. The team inviting publisher feedback includes Krishna Madhavan, Meenaz Merchant, Fabrice Canel, and Saral Nigam.<\/p>\n<h2>Related coverage<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/bizscoreai.com\/blog\/bing-webmaster-tools-ai-performance-public-preview\/\">Bing Webmaster Tools Adds AI Performance Reports in Public Preview<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"headline\":\"Bing Webmaster Tools Adds AI Performance Reports in Public Preview\",\"description\":\"Microsoft opens public preview of AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools, tracking citations in Copilot, Bing AI summaries, and partner integrations.\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-19T06:25:21.122Z\",\"publisher\":{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"name\":\"BizScoreAI\"}},{\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What is AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"AI Performance is a new reporting section in Bing Webmaster Tools, opened as a public preview by Microsoft. 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