Microsoft has announced the launch of AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools, a new reporting capability that gives website owners visibility into how their content is cited and used within AI-powered search experiences. The feature is now available in public preview for all verified sites.
The update marks one of the first first-party efforts by a major search engine to provide structured metrics around AI visibility, as generative answers increasingly replace traditional blue-link discovery across Bing and Microsoft Copilot.
A shift from clicks to AI visibility
Historically, search performance measurement has centered on impressions, rankings, and clicks. AI-driven answers change that dynamic by delivering information directly within the interface, often without a clear click-through event.
The new AI Performance report is designed to address this gap by showing when and how a site’s content is referenced as a grounding source for AI-generated responses. Instead of measuring user traffic, the report focuses on citation activity, reflecting influence and visibility within AI systems rather than downstream engagement.
According to Microsoft, this reporting applies to AI experiences across Bing, Microsoft Copilot, and select partner integrations.
What the AI performance report includes
The AI Performance dashboard introduces a new set of metrics tailored specifically to generative AI environments.
Total citations
The total number of times content from a site is cited as a source in AI-generated answers over a selected date range. This reflects usage by AI systems, not placement prominence or user interaction.
Average cited pages
The daily average number of unique pages from a site that are referenced by AI experiences. This metric highlights how broadly a site’s content is being used, rather than how frequently a single page appears.
Grounding queries
Sample queries and phrases that AI systems used to retrieve and ground content from the site. Microsoft notes that this data is representative, not exhaustive, and is intended to provide directional insight into how content is being discovered by AI.
Page-level citation data
A breakdown of citation activity by individual URLs, allowing publishers to identify which pages are most frequently referenced in AI answers.
Trend analysis
A time-series view showing changes in citation activity over time, helping site owners track growth, declines, or the impact of content updates.
Microsoft emphasizes that these metrics are separate from traditional search performance data and should be interpreted as a new layer of visibility, not a replacement for SEO reporting.
Why this matters for publishers and SEO teams
As AI-generated answers become a primary discovery mechanism, visibility increasingly depends on whether content is used as a source, not just whether it ranks.
The AI Performance report enables publishers to validate whether their content is being relied upon by AI systems, identify pages that function as authoritative references, understand which topics and formats are most likely to be cited, and track changes in AI visibility over time.
This aligns with the emerging practice often referred to as generative engine optimization, where the goal is to make content more extractable, referenceable, and trustworthy for AI models rather than purely optimizing for rankings and clicks.
How to access AI performance in Bing Webmaster Tools
Access to the AI Performance report is available to all verified site owners. Users can sign in to Bing Webmaster Tools, ensure their site is verified, navigate to the AI Performance section from the main dashboard, and select a date range to view citation metrics, grounding queries, and page-level data.
No additional setup or configuration is required. Because the feature is in public preview, Microsoft has indicated that metrics, coverage, and reporting depth may evolve over time.
How to use these insights effectively
Microsoft positions AI Performance as a diagnostic and strategic tool rather than a traffic report. Practical use cases include prioritizing pages that are already cited for deeper updates or expansion, identifying content gaps where AI visibility is low despite strong traditional SEO performance, using grounding queries to refine topic coverage and intent alignment, and monitoring how structural improvements affect AI citation trends.
Clear content structure, factual depth, and well-defined topical coverage are likely to play an increasingly important role in AI citation eligibility.
What comes next
Microsoft describes this release as an early foundation for broader AI visibility tooling. While the current report does not connect citations to clicks or conversions, it signals a shift toward recognizing AI influence as a measurable performance dimension.
As AI-assisted search continues to evolve, tools like AI Performance may become a standard complement to traditional SEO analytics, helping publishers understand not just where they rank, but whether they are shaping the answers users see.
