Bing Webmaster Tools AI Citations

Microsoft has given a first look at several upcoming AI reporting features for Bing Webmaster Tools, expanding how website owners may soon be able to track visibility within AI-powered search results.

The preview was shared by Krishna Madhavan, Principal Product Manager at Microsoft AI and Bing, during a presentation at SEO Week in New York. According to slides circulated by attendees on social media, the updates form part of an expanded AI Performance dashboard, which already tracks how often content is cited in Bing and Copilot-generated answers.

One of the most notable additions is a new metric called Citation Share. This feature is designed to show the proportion of citations a website receives within a specific “grounding query”. Instead of only counting how often a page is cited, Citation Share would provide a clearer view of how a site performs compared with other sources appearing in the same AI-generated result.

This means publishers would be able to see whether they are the dominant source for a query or just one of several cited references. In practice, it adds a competitive layer to existing reporting, moving beyond raw citation numbers into relative visibility.

Microsoft also previewed a new “Grounding Query Intent” system. This would classify search queries into predefined categories based on user intent. From the information shared so far, these categories include labels such as informational search, navigational queries, research-based searches, comparison queries, planning tasks, conversational prompts, and filtered content types.

Alongside this, a second classification layer called “Grounding Query Topic” would group queries into broader subject areas. This would allow site owners to view performance trends across themes rather than focusing only on individual search terms, making it easier to understand how content performs at scale.

A fourth feature, described as Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) recommendations, was also previewed. This appears to be a guidance system aimed at improving visibility in AI-driven search environments. Early indications suggest it may focus on areas such as content structure, crawlability, indexing signals, canonicalisation, and structured data implementation. However, Microsoft has not yet confirmed exactly how these recommendations will be generated or applied.

At this stage, none of these features have been officially released. There has been no formal announcement or detailed documentation from Microsoft, and the only available information comes from conference materials and attendee screenshots shared online. This means the features should be viewed as early previews rather than confirmed updates.

The current AI Performance dashboard, launched in public preview earlier this year, already allows website owners to monitor when their content is cited in AI-generated responses. A later update added grounding query mapping, which links specific queries to the pages being cited. The newly previewed features would significantly expand this reporting capability.

If Citation Share is introduced, it would add an important new dimension to this data. While citation counts show visibility, Citation Share would show distribution, helping publishers understand whether they are leading within a query or sharing visibility with multiple competitors.

The intent and topic classification systems could also address a long-standing challenge in search analytics: inconsistent query structure. Because users phrase similar searches in many different ways, grouping them by intent or topic could make it easier to identify trends and measure performance across broader content themes.

The GEO recommendation feature is currently the least defined. While it appears to align with established SEO principles such as structured data and indexing quality, Microsoft has not yet explained how recommendations will be triggered or prioritised within the system.

Importantly, there are still no confirmed timelines for release. Details such as how Citation Share will be calculated, how intent categories will be structured, and how GEO recommendations will function remain undisclosed.

For now, these updates should be treated as experimental previews rather than active tools. Further clarity is expected once Microsoft publishes official documentation or provides an update through its standard Bing Webmaster Tools communications channels.

If rolled out, these features could significantly change how AI search visibility is measured, shifting focus from simple citation counts towards more structured, comparative insights into how content performs within generative search results.