AI Performance: Microsoft Bing launches the first official GEO measurement tool

Microsoft has just launched AI Performance, the very first official tool allowing website publishers to measure their visibility in AI-generated responses. This feature, now available in public beta in Bing Webmaster Tools, offers unprecedented transparency into how content is cited by Microsoft Copilot, Bing's AI summaries, and certain partner integrations.

A new tab dedicated to AI performance

As noted by Rémi Nestasion in a LinkedIn postBing has just officially released a GEO report. This dashboard, named AI Performance, integrates directly in the interface of Bing Webmaster Toolsalongside traditional tools for monitoring indexing, crawl health, and search performance. Unlike classic metrics that measure clicks or rankings in search results, this new feature focuses exclusively on the use of content as sources in AI-generated responses.

This approach reflects a fundamental shift in how information is discovered online: visibility is no longer just about blue links, but now extends to citations and references used by artificial intelligence systemsAs the Microsoft AI product team explains, as AI becomes an essential way to discover information, visibility also involves the citation and referencing of content when AI systems generate responses.

The five essential dashboard metrics

Total citations

This metric indicates the total number of times your content has been displayed as a source in AI responses over a given periodIt quantifies how often AI systems reference your pages, without indicating their placement or presentation within a specific response. This measure highlights how your content contributes to AI-driven experiences.

Average pages cited

The tool calculates the average number of unique pages from your site cited daily in AI responses over the selected period. As the data are aggregated across multiple supported AI surfaces, this metric reflects overall citation trends without indicating a page's ranking, authority, or role in an individual response.

Grounding queries (anchoring queries)

This section presents a sample keywords used by the AI when retrieving the referenced content in generated responses. The displayed data represent a sample of overall citation activity. Microsoft notes that this metric will continue to be refined as additional data are processed.

Citation activity per page

This ranking identifies specific URLs from your site most frequently referenced in AI responses during the selected period. This view makes it easier to identify individual pages that are most often cited. This metric reflects how frequently pages are cited, without indicating their importance, ranking, or placement within generated responses.

Visibility trends over time

Finally, the timeline allows you to visualize the evolution of your site's citation activity over time across the different supported AI experiences. This overview makes it easy to quickly spot trends and visibility fluctuations, allowing changes to be identified at a glance.

Using AI Performance data to improve your content

By examining cited pages and anchor query phrases, the AI Performance data help clarify the visibility of your content in AI-generated responses.

This information can, for example, help you validate which pages are already being used as references in AI responses, identify content that appears frequently, and spot opportunities to improve the clarity, structure, or comprehensiveness of indexed pages that are cited less often.

Strengthen depth and expertise

Pages cited for specific anchor queries generally reflect a clear topical focus and domain expertise. Deepening coverage in related areas can strengthen your authority on those subjects and increase the likelihood that your content will be selected by AI systems.

Improve structure and clarity

Clear headings, tables, and FAQ sections make it easier to surface key information and enable AI systems to reference your content accurately. A well-organized structure helps language models extract and use information appropriately in their responses.

Support claims with evidence

Including examples, data and cited sources helps build trust when your content is reused in AI-generated responses. Factual, verifiable content is more likely to be chosen as reliable sources by AI systems.

Maintain freshness and accuracy

Regular updates ensure AI systems reference the most recent version of your content. Timeliness and accuracy of information are important factors for inclusion and citation in AI-generated responses.

Reduce ambiguity between formats

Aligning text, images and videos enables a coherent representation of the same entities, products or concepts. This multiformat consistency makes it easier for AI models to understand and use your content, allowing for more precise and relevant references.

IndexNow: the ally for content freshness

Accurate, up-to-date content is important for inclusion and citation in AI-generated responses. ItIndexNow contributes to keeping information fresh in search and AI experiences by notifying participating search engines whenever content is added, updated or removed.

By accelerating the discovery of content changes, IndexNow helps ensure AI systems reference the most recent version of a page when generating answers. If you aren't using IndexNow yet, you can get started by visiting indexnow.org.

Local information and AI visibility

For local businesses, the accuracy of business information is particularly important when AI experiences generate responses to geolocated queries.

In addition to Bing Webmaster Tools, businesses can sign up for Bing Places for Business to ensure essential details such as address, opening hours and contact information remain up to date and eligible for inclusion in AI-generated responses. Unfortunately, for the moment, Bing Places for Business is still not available in France…

Unprecedented transparency between AI and the open web

AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools marks an important step toward a greater transparency between AI systems and the open webAs Microsoft develops this information, the company will continue to collaborate with publishers and the webmaster community to improve inclusion, attribution and visibility both in search results and in AI experiences.

In its communication, Microsoft commits to continuing this partnership by evolving these capabilities and continuing to create tools that support discovery in the next generation of search and AI experiences. The company also emphasizes that Bing respects any preferences expressed by content owners via robots.txt and other supported control mechanisms.

The article "AI Performance: Microsoft Bing launches the first official GEO measurement tool" was published on the site Abondance.