Bing Topics Portfolio Shows Where Rivals Win AI Citations

On October 13, 2026, Microsoft added a beta tab called Topics Portfolio to the AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools (Bing Webmaster Blog). It does two things the report could not do before: it sizes each topic across all sites, and it lists the grounding queries where other sites are cited and yours is not. For Copilot and Bing's AI answers, a brand now gets an engine-native gap list.

The implication sits in one column. Sites Cited counts how many sites appear in a topic. It does not say how much of the topic the leaders hold, and in the Machine Relations Index those two quantities move independently: categories with almost the same number of cited domains need anywhere from 57 to 205 domains to cover half their citations. Read Sites Cited as a measure of how hard a topic is to enter and you will skip topics that are open and chase topics that are not.

What changed

AI Performance has grown in three steps this year. The full record is on the Copilot and Bing Change Log at paralax.ai/engines/copilot.

Date	Release	What a site could see
February 2026	AI Performance, public preview (Bing)	Its own citation counts, cited URLs and sample grounding queries across Copilot, Bing AI summaries and select partners
2026-06-16	Intents, Topics, Citation Share, Compare (Bing; our June brief)	Its share of citations per grounding query, and its own cited queries grouped into topics
2026-10-13	Topics Portfolio, beta	Topic totals across all sites, the number of sites cited, and queries where others are cited and it is not

The June Topics view grouped only the queries where a site was already cited. Topics Portfolio adds the rest of the room. Microsoft defines its columns this way:

Column	Bing's definition	What it does not tell you
Topic	A cluster of related grounding queries where your site appears, classified by AI	Whether the cluster matches how your buyers or your site divide the subject
Topic Size	Approximate total citations across all sites in the period	How many people asked: it counts citations, so an answer citing five sources contributes five
Sites Cited	Approximate number of sites appearing for the topic's queries	How the citations are distributed among those sites
Queries	Approximate number of distinct grounding queries	Which queries carry the volume

Below the table, Top Opportunity Queries lists the strongest queries across the whole portfolio where other sites appear and yours does not, with citation volumes shown as ranges. Inside each topic, the same split appears as two tables: Your Grounding Queries and Opportunity Queries. A one-, two- or three-month window is available.

Who it affects

Sites with enough presence in Copilot and Bing's AI answers. Microsoft says topics with insufficient site presence or ecosystem activity are not shown, so smaller sites may see a short list or no tab at all. The data covers Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing and select partner integrations. It says nothing about ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude or Google's AI surfaces, and engines do not behave alike: in our 89-day per-engine panel, whether a citation survives from one day to the next depended mostly on which engine it was.

Microsoft labels the whole view directional. In its words: "Treat the numbers as directional signals for planning, not as a precise ledger."

Sites Cited counts breadth, not concentration

A natural reading of the new columns is that a topic with few sites cited is open and a topic with many is crowded. The Index does not support that reading.

The Machine Relations Index measures, per subject category, how many distinct domains are cited and how many it takes to cover half of all citations (category concentration study, release of 2026-10-14, six engines, 25,323 answer runs). Three categories of nearly the same breadth:

Category	Domains cited	Domains to cover half of citations
Consumer Finance	1,326	57
Local Services	1,044	113
Industrial	1,240	205

A Sites Cited figure near 1,200 would fit all three. In one, half of what the engines cite comes from 57 domains; in another it takes 205. The count of sites does not predict the shape of the head.

Two more Index figures change how the new column should be read. Across the 20 categories that clear the evidence floor, no single domain holds more than 4.0% of its category, and the ten most-cited domains hold between 7.6% and 23.2%. A large Sites Cited number usually means a long middle of sources each holding a small share, and that middle is the part of a topic a new source can actually enter. A crowded count is not, on this evidence, a reason to skip a topic.

The Index covers six engines and does not include Copilot, so these figures describe how breadth and concentration relate in AI citation generally, not Bing's own topics. The direction of the caution holds either way: Topic Size divided by Sites Cited is an average over a skewed distribution, and an average hides exactly the head that decides whether a topic is winnable.

What to do with Opportunity Queries

The list is the most actionable thing Bing has shipped for AI visibility, and the least filtered. Three reads before acting on it:

• Strip the branded queries. Microsoft says a competitor's brand query can appear as an opportunity. Those are not gaps a page can close.
• Sort each query into one of two problems. If you have a page that answers the grounding query and it is not cited, the issue is the page's authority or retrievability. If you have no such page, it is a coverage gap. The fix differs, and the report does not tell you which you have.
• Use topic share for ranking, not reporting. Your citations in a topic against its Topic Size give a rough share. Both numbers are approximate, so the ratio is good for ordering your topics and poor as a figure for a board deck.

The per-query Citation Share from June remains the precise instrument. Topics Portfolio is the map that says where to point it.

What to watch

• Documentation. As of October 14, Search Engine Journal found that Bing's AI Performance help page did not yet cover Topics Portfolio, leaving the announcement as the main written guidance.
• Reach. Whether the tab extends to sites below the current presence threshold.
• A topic-level share. Bing now has both halves of a topic share, your citations and the topic total, but does not compute one. Whether it does will decide if this becomes a reporting metric or stays a planning aid.
• Other engines. If Google Search Console or another engine's site tools add queries where a site is absent, gap reporting becomes possible across engines from first-party data.

We will log any change to this report on the Copilot and Bing Change Log.

FAQ

What is Bing Topics Portfolio? A beta tab in the AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools, launched October 13, 2026. It groups the grounding queries where a site is cited in Copilot and Bing AI answers into topics, sizes each topic across all sites, and lists queries where other sites are cited and the site is not.

What does Sites Cited mean in Topics Portfolio? The approximate number of sites appearing for queries in a topic. It measures how many sites compete, not how concentrated citations are among them. In the Machine Relations Index, categories with similar numbers of cited domains need between 57 and 205 domains to cover half of their citations.

What are Opportunity Queries in Bing Webmaster Tools? Grounding queries in your topics where other sites are cited in AI answers and yours is not, shown with citation volumes as ranges. Microsoft notes that competitor brand queries can appear in the list.

Does Topics Portfolio cover ChatGPT or Google AI Mode? No. It covers Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing and select partner integrations.

Why can't I see Topics Portfolio? Microsoft shows the tab only when a site has sufficient data, and hides topics with insufficient site presence or ecosystem activity. Smaller sites may see a short list or no tab.