For years, SEOs have been flying blind when it comes to AI. We knew ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity were visiting our sites. We knew Microsoft Copilot was summarizing our hard-earned content. But we had no idea how often it was happening or which pages the AI actually liked.
That changed on February 10, 2026.
Microsoft officially pulled back the curtain by launching the AI Performance report inside Bing Webmaster Tools. It’s the first time a major search engine has given us a direct look at how an LLM (Large Language Model) interacts with our content.
At Citemetrix, we’ve been geeking out over this data. Why? Because it confirms everything we’ve been building into our ModelScore™ and visibility tracking.
But here’s the thing: the data is a bit "messy." If you just look at the raw numbers without context, you’re going to make some bad strategic moves. Here are 10 things you absolutely need to know about Bing’s new AI reports and how to use them to win at LLM SEO.
1. It’s a Public Preview (For Now)
The report is currently in public preview. This means any site verified in Bing Webmaster Tools can see it, but the features are still being polished. It’s located right under the "Performance" tab. If you haven't checked your Bing dashboard in a while, now is the time to log in. This is the first "official" data set we have for AI visibility, making it a goldmine for anyone trying to figure out why their organic traffic is shifting.
2. It Measures Citations, Not Clicks
This is the most important distinction to make. In traditional SEO, we obsess over clicks and impressions. In the AI Performance report, the primary metric is Citations.
A citation occurs when Copilot (or a partner integration) uses your content to generate an answer and provides a link back to your site as a source.
- The Catch: Just because you were cited doesn’t mean the user clicked.
- The Citemetrix View: This is exactly why we focus on "Share of Voice." Being cited is about brand authority and being part of the conversation.
Caption: A visualization of the Bing AI Performance dashboard showing citation trends.
3. The Data Export Situation
Currently, you get three main types of data exports in CSV format:
- Daily Overviews: Total citations and unique pages cited per day.
- Page-Level Stats: Which specific URLs are getting the most love from the AI.
- Grounding Queries: The specific phrases the AI used to find your content.
Note that there’s no API access yet. You have to manually download these reports. This is where a tool like Citemetrix comes in handy: we help you interpret the "why" behind these numbers so you don't spend all day in Excel.
4. Beware of "Query Fanout" (The Inflation Factor)
When a user asks Copilot a question, the AI doesn't just do one search. It performs a process called "query fanout." It takes the user's prompt and breaks it into 3 to 5 different search queries to gather the best information.
Because of this, your citation numbers might look huge: often 3x to 5x higher than the actual number of user conversations you were part of. If you see 5,000 citations, you might only have been involved in 1,000 actual human interactions. Don't let the big numbers stroke your ego too much; look at the trends instead.
5. Historical Data Goes Back to November 2025
Microsoft was kind enough to include historical data starting from November 2025. This is significant because it marks the rollout of a major Copilot search update. By looking at your data from late 2025 through today, you can see if your site gained or lost "favor" with the AI after that specific algorithm shift. If your citations tanked in December, you might have a technical issue with your llms.txt or a content quality problem.
6. High Citations Can Mean Lower Traffic
This sounds counterintuitive, but it’s a reality of the AI era. Some early testers found that while their citations were through the roof (thousands per month), their actual organic traffic from Bing dropped by as much as 75%.
Why? Because the AI is doing a "good enough" job of answering the question within the chat interface. The user gets the info they need, sees your brand cited as the source (building trust), but never actually visits your site. This is why you need to stop measuring success solely by clicks and start looking at AI Brand Authority.
Caption: A chart comparing the "Citation-Traffic Paradox" where visibility rises but clicks decline.
7. The Pareto Principle Lives in AI
In our research and the early data from Bing, we’ve noticed that AI citations are highly concentrated. It’s common for a single page to account for 60% or 70% of a site’s total AI visibility.
The LLM finds a "source of truth" on your site for a specific topic and hits it over and over again. If that one page goes down or gets outdated, your entire AI visibility could vanish overnight. You can use the Citemetrix Professional plan to monitor these "hero pages" and ensure they stay optimized for AI retrieval.
8. AI Content Decay is Real
Unlike traditional Google rankings, which can stay stable for months, AI citations can peak and crash incredibly fast. One site saw a spike of nearly 6,000 citations in a day, only to see a 97% drop two months later.
AI models are constantly updating their "retrieval index." If your content isn't regularly updated or doesn't maintain a high ModelScore™, the AI will move on to a fresher source.
9. Grounding Queries are the "New Keywords"
In the Bing report, "Grounding Queries" are the phrases the AI used to find your site. These are often different from what the user typed.
For example:
- User Prompt: "How do I grow my SaaS?"
- Grounding Query: "SaaS growth strategies 2026," "B2B SaaS marketing benchmarks," or "Citemetrix SaaS visibility guide."
Understanding these grounding queries tells you exactly how the AI categorizes your brand. If the AI thinks you’re a "cheap alternative" when you’re trying to be a "premium leader," you have a sentiment and positioning problem.
Caption: Examples of Grounding Queries vs. User Prompts in the AI search ecosystem.
10. The Big Gaps (What’s Missing)
Bing’s reports are a great start, but they leave out the most important pieces of the puzzle:
- No Sentiment Analysis: Does the AI like you? Or is it citing you as an example of what not to do?
- No Competitor Data: You can see your citations, but you have no idea how many your competitors are getting.
- No Multi-Platform View: This is only Bing/Copilot. It tells you nothing about ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini.
How Citemetrix Bridges the Gap
Bing has given us a peek into the engine room, but Citemetrix gives you the steering wheel. While the Bing AI Performance report shows you raw citation counts for one platform, Citemetrix aggregates data across the entire AI landscape.
We don't just tell you that you were cited; we tell you:
- Your ModelScore™: A comprehensive health check of your AI visibility.
- Sentiment Tracking: Whether the AI is talking about you in a positive, neutral, or negative light.
- Share of Voice: How often you are recommended compared to your top 5 competitors.
- Technical Readiness: Use our AI Crawler Check to see if you’re accidentally blocking the bots that feed these reports.
The Bottom Line
The launch of Bing’s AI Performance report is a massive "I told you so" for the importance of AI Visibility. The data proves that LLMs are actively crawling, citing, and summarizing your content every single day.
If you aren't tracking this, you're missing the largest shift in search history. Use Bing Webmaster Tools to get your baseline, but use Citemetrix to actually move the needle.
Ready to see what the AI really thinks of your brand?
See what AI says about your brand → citemetrix.com
Caption: The Citemetrix dashboard showing how to track AI sentiment and ModelScore side-by-side.
Summary Checklist for Bing's AI Reports:
- Verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools.
- Download your Grounding Queries to see your "AI Keywords."
- Check for high-citation pages and ensure they are up to date.
- Compare Citation trends against your GA4 traffic to see the correlation.
- Join the Citemetrix Beta to see the competitor data Bing is hiding.
The world of LLM SEO is moving fast. Don't wait for your traffic to hit zero before you start paying attention to your AI visibility.
