Bing now shows which AI search queries you're losing to rivals

Microsoft has added a feature called Topics Portfolio to Bing Webmaster Tools that shows, for the first time, which AI search queries a site is missing out on and which rivals are winning them instead. The beta tool groups a site's "grounding queries" from Bing's AI answers into themed clusters, then lists queries in each theme where other sites get cited and yours doesn't. It's the first mainstream tool to put a number on that gap.

What changed?

Microsoft announced Topics Portfolio on the Bing Webmaster Blog on 13 October 2026, in a post signed by Krishna Madhavan, Saral Nigam and Vivek Jain of Microsoft Bing, as reported by Relevant Audience. The feature sits inside the existing AI Performance report, which isn't new: it opened to public preview on 11 February 2026.

What's new is the structure. Rather than showing performance query by query, Topics Portfolio groups the grounding queries where your site appears into broader thematic clusters, for example football, taxes or AI chatbots, so you can see the shape of your presence across a topic rather than one query at a time.

Each topic comes with three figures. Topic Size shows the approximate total citations across all sites for that topic over the selected period, a measure of how much AI search demand it represents. Sites Cited shows the approximate number of sites appearing for queries in that topic, indicating how crowded it is. Queries shows the approximate number of distinct grounding queries within it.

The headline addition is what Bing calls Top Opportunity Queries: the strongest queries across your whole portfolio where other sites appear and yours does not. This is the first time Bing's AI reporting has surfaced where a site is being outcited, rather than only where it's winning.

Microsoft is careful to flag the limits of the data. Relevant Audience reports that Bing warns topic labels are AI-generated, small sites may see no tab, and competitor brand queries can appear as opportunities. Bing itself describes the figures as "directional signals for planning, not as a precise ledger".

Why does this matter for your business?

AI visibility has been a black box for most marketers. You can see that ChatGPT or Copilot sometimes cites you and sometimes cites a competitor, but until now there was no built-in way to see the pattern at scale or understand how big the opportunity actually is.

Topics Portfolio changes that, at least for Bing and Copilot. It converts a vague feeling ("we don't seem to show up for X") into a ranked list of specific queries and topics with demand and competitor counts attached. That's directly useful for deciding where to invest content effort.

It also reflects a broader shift happening across search platforms this month. Google has separately been overhauling how AI Overviews and AI Mode surface source links, with more visible inline links, dedicated sections for official websites, expanded news carousels, and clickable profiles for publishers and creators announced on 15 October 2026, according to Analytics Insight. Both moves point the same way: search platforms are under pressure to give site owners more transparency about how AI answers treat them, even as overall click-through from AI summaries keeps falling.

Separate research reinforces why topic-level, cross-platform visibility matters so much right now. A Korean study from Jeongmaek Marketing Lab, covered by Digital Today, looked at 635 search terms without brand names among 26 branded search keywords, comparing 21,225 AI answers collected over 30 days and 85,392 cited sources across Naver AI Briefing, Google AI Overviews, Gemini and ChatGPT. It found Google AI Overviews leaned heavily on YouTube and social media, mostly YouTube at 29.4 percent, while ChatGPT cited public institutions and organisation websites at 18.0 percent and Gemini cited non-Naver blogs at 13.1 percent. Each AI engine sources differently, which is exactly why a single platform's "opportunity queries" report, while useful, is only part of the picture.

What should you do now?

If you have a Bing Webmaster Tools account with enough AI citation data, check the new tab first. It sits next to Citations & Pages inside the AI Performance report and works by taking the grounding queries that show up for your site and organising them into related topic clusters, with football, taxes and AI chatbots given as examples.

Use the Top Opportunity Queries list as a content brief, not a scoreboard. These are queries where a competitor is already winning the citation, so they tell you precisely what to write, restructure or clarify to compete for the same grounding query next time Bing's crawlers reassess the page.

Don't treat Bing's numbers as the whole story. Because citation patterns differ sharply by platform, as the Naver study above shows, a business should check how it appears across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Gemini as well, not just Copilot. This is the kind of cross-platform gap that tools like Sited's free audit at https://sited.online are built to check, since a strong showing in one AI engine often masks weak or non-existent visibility in another.

Finally, remember this is beta and self-reported by Microsoft. Treat the topic sizes and opportunity counts as a planning signal, re-check monthly, and pair them with your own prompt testing across AI assistants to confirm the gaps are real before investing heavily in new content.

Frequently asked questions

What is Topics Portfolio in Bing Webmaster Tools?

It is a beta tab inside Bing's AI Performance report that groups the queries your site is cited for in AI answers into broader topics and lists queries in those topics where other sites appear and yours doesn't.

Do I need a lot of traffic to see the new feature?

Yes. Microsoft says the feature only appears within the AI Performance report if there is sufficient data for your site, so very small or new sites may not see the tab yet.

How is this different from Google Search Console's AI data?

Google's generative AI performance reports show impressions but, unlike Bing's new feature, they do not currently highlight specific queries where competitors are cited and you are not. Bing's Topics Portfolio is the first major webmaster tool to surface that gap directly.

Should I trust the exact numbers in the report?

Treat them as estimates rather than precise figures. Bing itself describes the topic and query counts as "directional signals for planning, not as a precise ledger", and warns that topic labels are AI-generated and competitor brand queries can appear as opportunities.

Does doing well on Bing mean I'll do well on ChatGPT or Google too?

Not necessarily. Research comparing citation sources across platforms found real differences: for example, Naver Blog accounted for 46.5 percent of Naver AI Briefing citations but wasn't cited once by Gemini or ChatGPT, so gains on one AI engine don't automatically transfer to the others.