Bing added a feature called Topics Portfolio to its AI Performance report on October 13, 2026. The beta groups the questions where Microsoft Copilot and Bing’s AI summaries cite a website into broader topics, and it lists questions where other sites get cited and yours does not.
For a law firm, that last part is the useful one. Bing Webmaster Tools AI performance data comes from Microsoft itself rather than from an outside tool estimating what an AI engine shows.
Bing Webmaster Tools’ AI Performance report shows how often Copilot and Bing’s AI summaries cite a site, and the new Topics Portfolio groups those citations by theme.
Law firms can use its opportunity queries to find questions where other sites get cited and theirs does not, then plan pages to close the gap.
What Bing’s AI Performance Report Shows
Bing’s AI Performance report tracks citations, meaning the times a site appears as a source in an AI-generated answer. According to Bing’s launch post for AI Performance, it reports four things:
- Total citations: how many times the site was shown as a source in the selected period.
- Average cited pages: the daily average of unique pages from the site cited in AI answers.
- Grounding queries: the phrases the AI used when it retrieved the site’s content.
- Page-level citations: how often each URL is cited.
Bing also notes the data is a sample of overall citation activity.
Four Steps to Find the Copilot Questions Your Firm Is Missing
Step 1: Add the Site to Bing Webmaster Tools
A firm that already uses Google Search Console can bring its site into Bing Webmaster Tools by importing it. Imported sites are verified automatically, so the manual verification steps are skipped, according to Bing’s notes on importing from Google Search Console.
Step 2: See Which Pages Already Get Cited
Open AI Performance and review page-level citations. Note which practice areas the most-cited pages cover. These pages are worth protecting, so keep their facts current.
Step 3: Open Topics Portfolio and Pick Your Practice Areas
Each topic row shows, per the Topics Portfolio announcement, Topic Size (approximate citations across all sites), Sites Cited (how crowded the topic is) and Queries (how many distinct grounding queries it holds). Pick the two or three topics that match the firm’s main practice areas.
Step 4: Turn Opportunity Queries Into a Page List
Each topic page lists opportunity queries, where other sites are cited and the firm’s site is not. For each one, decide whether an existing page should answer it more directly or whether it needs a new page.
A family law firm, for example, might see several custody questions listed as opportunities while its own custody page is cited for only one narrow point. The fix could be a clearer custody page with direct answers at the top of each section, rather than three new blog posts.
Reading the Numbers Without Overreacting
Bing flags several limits for Topics Portfolio.
- Topic labels are AI-generated, so some queries land in a topic a firm would not choose.
- Small sites may see few topics or none, because topics with too little activity are hidden.
- Branded queries can show up as opportunities. A query naming another firm is not a gap to fill.
- The numbers are approximate. Bing advises treating them “as directional signals for planning.”
Firms already working on proving AI search visibility to partners can add the report as one more source, labeled as an estimate.
Frequently Asked Questions
A law firm that uses Google Search Console can add its site to Bing Webmaster Tools by importing it. Bing says sites imported from Search Console are verified automatically, so the firm skips the manual verification steps.
A grounding query in Bing’s AI Performance report is a key phrase the AI used when it retrieved a site’s content to support an answer. It shows which phrases led the AI to the firm’s pages.
A law firm may see no topics in Topics Portfolio because Bing hides topics where a site’s presence or overall activity is too low. Page-level citations in the main AI Performance report can still show which pages get cited.
A Copilot citation does not mean a firm ranks well in Bing. Bing says page-level citation counts show how often pages are cited, “not page importance, ranking, or placement.” Treat citations as one signal of AI visibility, separate from regular search rankings.
- AI Performance launched in public preview on February 10, 2026; Topics Portfolio (beta) was added October 13, 2026.
- The report covers Microsoft Copilot, AI summaries in Bing and select partner integrations.
- Topics Portfolio shows topic size, sites cited and query counts, plus opportunity queries.
- Bing says to treat the numbers as directional signals, not exact counts.
Putting Bing Webmaster Tools AI Performance Data to Work
Bing Webmaster Tools AI performance data lets a law firm see AI citations straight from the company running the AI. Even so, it shows two things a firm needs to know: which of its pages an AI engine uses, and which questions are going to someone else.
Set it up this week, give it time to collect data, then work through the opportunity queries one practice area at a time. Pair it with what the firm already knows about how firms rank in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini so no single report drives every decision.
Lexicon’s legal content experts write law firm FAQ pages and practice content built around the questions an opportunity query list turns up. Call 877-486-8123 or contact us online to plan the first few pages from your own report.
