Microsoft Copilot: Bing is the index, and now you can see your citations

01How Copilot builds an answer

It interprets the question, writes its own internal search phrases (grounding queries), runs them against Bing's index, and assembles an answer from chunks of several pages. If Bing has not indexed your page, Copilot has nothing to retrieve.

Copilot appears in several places: the consumer app, Windows, Edge, Bing search and Microsoft 365. Each reaches a different audience, which is why its footprint is larger than the standalone app suggests.

02The first-party data: Bing's AI Performance report

On 10 February 2026 Microsoft introduced AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools (public preview). It shows total citations displayed as sources in AI answers across Copilot, Bing AI summaries and partner integrations, a timeline, grounding queries, and page-level citation activity.

Search Influence pulled 91 days of their own data on launch day: 19,717 citations across 86 pages, with one page accounting for 69% of them and a single-day spike of 5,804 citations. Two lessons: citations concentrate heavily on a few pages, and they are volatile.

03How much traffic it sends

Little, but steady. Goodie's B2B GA4 panel held Copilot near 4% of measurable AI referrals through March–April 2026. Copilot on the web passes referrer data; the Windows app does not, so GA4 undercounts it.

04What to do for Copilot

Get into Bing properly, keep pages fresh, and read the report monthly.

1. 1Verify in Bing Webmaster Tools. Submit your sitemap and turn on IndexNow so updates are picked up quickly; Microsoft points site owners to it for AI answers.
2. 2Allow Bingbot. Copilot can only cite what Bing has crawled.
3. 3Write for chunks. Selection happens at the section level: answer-first headings and self-contained blocks.
4. 4Read the grounding queries. They show the language Copilot uses to find you; cover the gaps on your pages.

05How to measure

Use the AI Performance report as your primary number for Copilot, add a Copilot filter to your GA4 AI channel, and keep the monthly prompt list. Because the report shows frequency rather than clicks, pair it with the form question to connect citations to leads.

06Reading grounding queries like a keyword report

Grounding queries are the phrases Copilot writes for itself to retrieve pages; they are not what the user typed. Bing's report shows them per page, which makes it the closest thing to a keyword report for AI search that any platform offers.

Use them in three ways. First, see which phrasing of a topic Copilot reaches for, and make sure your page uses it in a heading and opening sentence. Second, spot sub-questions you are being retrieved for but do not answer fully, and add a section. Third, notice which pages never appear and check whether Bing has indexed them at all.

Treat the numbers as frequency, not performance. The report does not show clicks or ranking, so pair it with GA4 and the form question to connect citations to enquiries.

07Why Copilot is worth a line in the report

Its traffic share is small, but it reaches a specific audience: people inside Microsoft 365, Windows and Edge at work. For B2B and professional-services brands, that is often exactly the buyer, and the citation data is the cleanest available.

Copilot also runs on OpenAI models with Bing grounding, so the content habits that work for ChatGPT (answer-first sections, specific facts, earned mentions) carry over. The extra Copilot-specific work is mostly Bing hygiene: verification, sitemap, IndexNow, and a check that Bingbot is not blocked.

One caution from the Search Influence data: citations concentrated on a single page (69% of 19,717) and spiked then faded within weeks. Expect the same volatility on your own site, and judge the trend over a quarter.

08Copilot for Australian B2B brands

If your buyers work inside Microsoft 365, Copilot is on their screen all day. For professional services, software and B2B suppliers in Australia, that makes Copilot a disproportionately relevant channel despite its small share of total AI traffic.

The data you get back is also unusually useful for stakeholders. A screenshot of the Bing AI Performance report showing your pages being cited, with the grounding queries that found them, is a concrete artefact of AI visibility that no other platform provides. Use it in the monthly report alongside GA4 and the form question.

09Writing for chunk-level selection

Copilot assembles an answer from pieces of several pages, so the unit that gets cited is a section, not a page. Each H2 should be a full question or statement, the first sentence should answer it, and the section should make sense on its own.

This is the same discipline that works for AI Overviews and ChatGPT. The Copilot-specific twist is that grounding queries are visible, so you can check whether your section headings use the language Copilot is actually searching for, and adjust them. Few platforms let you close that loop so directly.

10A 30-day Copilot setup

Week one: verify the site in Bing Webmaster Tools, submit the sitemap, enable IndexNow. Week two: check robots.txt for Bingbot and confirm key pages are indexed in Bing. Week three: read the AI Performance report and list the grounding queries per page. Week four: add the missing sub-answers and refresh the two or three pages Copilot already cites most.

After that, a monthly ten-minute check of the report is enough. Watch for new grounding queries (new sub-questions to cover), for pages that drop out of the report (an indexing or freshness problem), and for concentration (if one page earns most citations, build a second on an adjacent question).

11Copilot versus the other assistants

Where Copilot sits relative to the platforms you already track.

12The short version

Copilot is Bing with an AI layer. Index in Bing, freshen your pages, and use the one AI citation report that comes straight from the platform.