Short Answer: What is Topics Portfolio in Bing Webmaster Tools?
Topics Portfolio is a new beta feature in the AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools, announced October 13, 2026, that groups the queries where your site is cited in AI answers into broader topics. For each topic it shows how much citation activity exists across all sites, how many sites are cited, and which queries other sites are cited for and yours is not. Bing calls the numbers directional signals, not a precise ledger.
Quick Summary
- Microsoft’s announcement, by Krishna Madhavan, Saral Nigam, and Vivek Jain of Microsoft Bing, says Topics Portfolio groups grounding queries into thematic clusters such as football, taxes, or AI chatbots.
- Each topic shows Topic Size, Sites Cited, and Queries, and a Top Opportunity Queries list shows where other sites are cited and yours is not, with volumes as ranges.
- It appears as a new tab beside Citations & Pages in AI Performance, with one-, two-, and three-month windows, but only if Bing has enough data for your site.
- The topics are AI-generated, branded queries can show up as opportunities, and smaller sites may see a short list or no tab at all.
- Search Engine Roundtable notes the feature does not yet include click data, so it measures citations, not visits.
Microsoft announced Topics Portfolio on October 13, 2026, on the Bing Webmaster blog, in a post titled “Introducing Topics Portfolio (Beta) in AI Performance.” Search Engine Journal and Search Engine Roundtable covered it the same day. The feature builds on the AI Performance report, which Bing introduced as a public preview in February 2026.
What Is the AI Performance Report in Bing Webmaster Tools?
According to Bing’s February announcement, AI Performance shows how a verified site’s content is cited in Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing, and select partner integrations. It reports total citations, the average number of unique pages cited per day, page-level citation activity, and trends over time.
It also lists grounding queries, which Bing describes as the key phrases the AI used when retrieving the content it cited. Bing says the data represents a sample of overall citation activity, and that the report counts citations without indicating ranking, authority, or a page’s role in an answer. Our guide to grounding in AI covers the broader idea of connecting answers to sources.
What Does Topics Portfolio Add?
Until now, AI Performance showed grounding queries and the pages cited for each. Topics Portfolio adds a broader view. Bing says it shows how your presence is distributed across themes, how much demand each theme represents, how competitive each theme is, and where your site has room to grow.
Search Engine Journal explains the difference from the earlier report: the June update grouped only queries where your site was already cited, while Topics Portfolio adds all-site totals at the topic level, queries where you are not cited, and context about the wider ecosystem.
Bing says everything in the view is personalized to your site. The topics and opportunity queries come from your own presence and activity in AI Search, not from a generic list.
What Do the Topic Metrics Mean?
| Column | What Bing says it tells you |
|---|---|
| Topic | A broad thematic cluster of related grounding queries where your site appears. |
| Topic Size | The approximate total citations across all sites for the topic over the selected period, a measure of how much AI Search demand the topic represents. |
| Sites Cited | The approximate number of sites appearing for queries in the topic, which indicates how crowded it is. |
| Queries | The approximate number of distinct grounding queries in the topic. |
Below the topic table, Top Opportunity Queries lists the strongest queries across your portfolio where other sites appear and yours does not. Citation volumes there are shown as ranges rather than exact numbers.
Clicking a topic opens a detail page with three cards: the Topic Size, your own citations within the topic, and the number of queries. Beneath them are two tables: Your Grounding Queries, the top queries where your site already appears, and Opportunity Queries, the top queries where other sites appear and yours does not.
How Do You Find and Use It?
- Sign in to Bing Webmaster Tools and open the AI Performance report for your site.
- If Bing has enough data, you will see a Topics Portfolio tab next to Citations & Pages.
- Choose a one-, two-, or three-month window.
- Start with the topics where your citations are already concentrated, then work down the opportunity queries.
Bing says the feature should be most useful to publishers doing content strategy, editorial planning, and competitive positioning. Every topic row and opportunity query has thumbs-up and thumbs-down buttons, which Bing says go straight to the team working on the classification and opportunity selection.
What Are the Limits and Caveats?
Bing is shipping Topics Portfolio with a beta label and says to treat the numbers as directional signals for planning. Its stated limitations:
- Topic classification is AI-generated and can occasionally be imperfect, so a query may land in a topic you would have labeled differently.
- Topics with insufficient site presence or ecosystem activity are not shown, so smaller sites may see a shorter list or may not see the feature.
- Branded queries can appear as opportunity queries. Bing’s example is a shoe retailer seeing a competitor’s brand name listed as an opportunity in a Running Shoes topic.
- Topic Size, Sites Cited, and Queries are approximate, and opportunity citation volumes are deliberately shown as ranges.
Search Engine Journal adds that Bing has not announced when the feature will leave beta, and that Bing’s AI Performance help page did not yet cover it when the article was published.
What Does This Mean for Marketers and AEO?
The following are our observations. Topics Portfolio is a Bing tool, and it reports Bing’s own AI surfaces.
- Use it as a gap map, not a scoreboard. Opportunity queries point to questions where AI answers cite other sites on your subject. They are a starting point for new or improved pages, and Bing warns the list can include irrelevant brand queries. Our piece on AEO topics vs. prompts explains why thinking in topics, not single prompts, is useful.
- Remember the scope. The report covers Microsoft Copilot, Bing AI summaries, and select partner integrations. It does not tell you how you appear in other AI engines, so combine it with the tracking you already do.
- Citations are not visits. Search Engine Roundtable notes there is no click data yet. Pair it with your analytics, and see our guide to AI visibility metrics for measures to track together.
- Expect movement over time. Citations shift often, as our coverage of the Babel42 AI Overviews study showed for Google, so compare windows rather than reacting to a single snapshot.
- Check your data volume. If you do not see the tab, Bing may not have enough data for your site yet. For how sources are retrieved and chosen, see our explainer on how AI search retrieval works.
It also sits alongside other changes this week, such as Google’s update to inline links in AI Mode and AI Overviews, as search engines add more visibility and reporting around AI answers.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Topics Portfolio in Bing Webmaster Tools?
It is a beta feature in the AI Performance report that groups the grounding queries where your site is cited into broader topics, and shows how large and crowded each topic is and which queries other sites are cited for and yours is not.
Where do I find Topics Portfolio?
Open the AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools. If Bing has enough data for your site, a Topics Portfolio tab appears next to Citations & Pages.
What do Topic Size, Sites Cited, and Queries mean?
Topic Size is the approximate total citations across all sites for the topic. Sites Cited is the approximate number of sites cited, which indicates how crowded the topic is. Queries is the approximate number of distinct grounding queries in the topic.
What are opportunity queries?
They are queries where other sites are cited in AI answers and yours is not. Bing shows their citation volumes as ranges, and notes that branded queries can appear among them.
Does Topics Portfolio show clicks or traffic?
No. Search Engine Roundtable notes it does not yet include click data. The report counts citations and, per Bing, does not indicate ranking or a page’s role in an answer.
Does it show citations in ChatGPT or Google AI Mode?
No. Bing describes AI Performance as covering Microsoft Copilot, AI summaries in Bing, and select partner integrations.
Sources: Bing Webmaster Blog: Introducing Topics Portfolio (Beta) in AI Performance, Bing Webmaster Blog: Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools Public Preview, Search Engine Journal: Bing Webmaster Tools Sorts AI Search Queries Into Topics, Search Engine Roundtable: Topics Portfolio In Bing Webmaster Tools AI Performance Reports. Beta features can change.
About the author
Kai Williams
Kai Williams has been in marketing for years, with a long background in SEO before AEO had a name. He stepped into Answer Engine Optimization the moment AI started reshaping how people search, and has been tracking the shift ever since. At Prompt Insider, he covers AEO, AI marketing, and the future of search, breaking down what is changing and what brands need to do about it.
