Microsoft on Optimising for AI Search

Microsoft has released new recommendations to help content creators optimise their pages for visibility within AI-driven search results. The guidance focuses on how structure, clarity, and presentation can improve the chances of content being selected for AI-generated answers across Bing-powered platforms.

According to Microsoft, the key lies in how information is organised rather than simply how it is written. The company advises that content should have a clear and logical block-level structure, allowing AI systems to extract complete, self-contained ideas easily. In practice, this means crafting concise sections, aligning headings and titles properly, and ensuring schema markup reflects the page’s actual layout and intent.

Microsoft also suggests incorporating question-and-answer formats and short, easy-to-digest lists where appropriate. These formats are not only helpful to human readers but also to AI assistants that look for structured and scannable content to generate summaries and responses.

The company warns against several common mistakes that could reduce visibility. Hidden text, excessively long paragraphs, or critical information stored in PDFs or images can all make it difficult for AI systems to understand or surface the right details. Microsoft encourages website owners to keep essential content in accessible, text-based formats.

While much of this advice aligns with long-standing SEO and user experience best practices, Microsoft’s latest update highlights how these fundamentals now play a bigger role in AI-driven search. The company clarified that there is “no secret formula” to guarantee inclusion in AI-generated results. However, well-structured and clearly formatted content stands a significantly better chance of being selected.

Microsoft explained that the way search visibility works is changing. Traditional search results relied heavily on page rankings and link positions, whereas AI search focuses more on identifying the most relevant snippets of information from across the web. As the company put it:

“In traditional search, visibility meant appearing in a ranked list of links. In AI search, ranking still happens, but it’s less about ordering entire pages and more about which pieces of content earn a place in the final answer.”

In essence, AI search visibility is becoming less about where your page appears and more about how well your content communicates a complete idea on its own. Clear formatting, structured information, and contextual relevance are now central to ensuring content stands out in this new search environment.

Key Differences In AI Search

Microsoft has offered new insight into how AI assistants evaluate and select online content, explaining that the process is far more nuanced than traditional search ranking. Instead of simply scanning full pages, AI systems now break content down into smaller, manageable sections. Each part is assessed for its authority, clarity, and relevance before being combined with other credible sources to form a complete, coherent answer.

The company emphasised that while core SEO principles remain essential — such as crawlability, metadata, internal linking, and backlinks — these elements are just the foundation. What now determines whether your content is selected for AI-generated responses is the structure and clarity of each individual section. In other words, the way your ideas are organised matters as much as what they say.

Microsoft’s Recommended Best Practices

To give your content the best chance of being featured in AI-powered search tools like Copilot, Microsoft outlined several key practices to follow:

Align key page elements. Ensure your title, meta description, and H1 heading clearly reflect the main topic and intent of the page.
Use structured headings. Write descriptive H2 and H3 headings that focus on one idea per section. This helps both users and AI models follow your logic.
Create standalone Q&A blocks. Write clear, concise paragraphs or question-and-answer sections that make sense on their own, so AI can easily extract them.
Incorporate simple lists and tables. Use bullet points, numbered steps, or comparison tables to present information clearly — but avoid overusing them.
Add the right schema markup. Use JSON-LD schema that accurately matches your content type to help AI interpret your page’s structure and meaning.

What to Avoid

Microsoft also highlighted several common content practices that can hinder visibility in AI search results:

Avoid long, unbroken blocks of text that mix several ideas together.
Don’t hide key information inside tabs, accordions, or expandable menus that might not display properly to crawlers.
Never rely solely on PDFs for crucial content, as these formats are often harder for AI systems to read and interpret.
Refrain from putting important details inside images without alt text or accessible HTML versions.
Stay away from vague statements that lack data or examples to support them.
Keep punctuation and formatting simple — avoid decorative symbols or lengthy strings of special characters that can disrupt readability.

Why This Guidance Matters

According to Microsoft, the overall structure of your content plays a major role in how likely it is to be selected by AI systems. When your titles, subheadings, and schema markup are consistent and aligned, it becomes easier for AI assistants like Copilot to identify and extract a complete idea from your page.

This represents a shift from how traditional SEO worked. In the past, visibility mainly depended on rankings within a list of links. Now, AI search tools focus more on identifying the most useful snippets of information — the individual blocks of text that best answer a user’s question.

For marketers and content creators, this guidance serves more as a practical checklist than a completely new strategy. It bridges the gap between established SEO methods and the emerging world of AI-driven discovery. By following these steps, businesses can make their content more “AI-friendly”, ensuring that it’s easier for Bing-powered tools to understand and feature in generated responses.

Looking Ahead

Microsoft has acknowledged that there’s no guaranteed method to ensure inclusion in AI-generated results. However, adopting these best practices can significantly improve how accessible and understandable your content is to AI systems. As AI assistants continue to evolve, structured, well-organised, and clearly written content will become increasingly essential to maintaining visibility online.