Bing now shows you where to grow in AI search. Its new Topics Portfolio groups the questions behind your citations into topics, sizes each topic against every site cited in it, and lists the questions where other sites are cited and yours is not. It is a gap list, not a ranking, and Microsoft says its numbers are planning signals, not an exact ledger.
Topics Portfolio is a beta tab inside the AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools, announced on October 13, 2026. It only appears when Bing holds enough data for your site. Smaller sites may see a short list, or no tab at all.
What Topics Portfolio Is
AI Performance already showed which of your pages Bing’s AI answers cited, and the grounding queries behind each citation. Topics Portfolio adds the wider view: how that presence spreads across themes, how much demand each theme carries, how crowded it is, and where you have room to grow.
The view is personal to your site. The topics and the opportunity queries come from your own presence in AI search, not from a generic list of what is popular. Two sites in the same niche will see different portfolios.
Open Bing Webmaster Tools, go to the AI Performance report, and look for the Topics Portfolio tab beside Citations and Pages. The landing page lists the topics where your site has a meaningful presence, with three measures beside each one.
The audience Microsoft names is publishers doing content strategy, editorial planning, and competitive positioning. That fits: the tool answers planning questions, not reporting ones. It does not tell you how many clicks you got; it tells you where the next article should go.
For a small site, the honest first use is narrower. Check whether the tab exists at all, then look at the two or three topics where you already have citations. Those are your proven ground, and the gaps beside them are the cheapest wins.
Grounding Queries: The Unit Behind It
A grounding query is the short phrase an AI system uses to fetch sources before it writes an answer. It is not the question a person typed. It is the retrieval wording behind the answer, and it is what Bing counts.
That distinction matters. A person might ask which laptop lasts longest on a flight, while the AI system fires off grounding queries about battery life, weight, and reviews. Your page gets cited for the grounding query, not the person’s question.
Topics Portfolio groups those grounding queries into broad themes. Microsoft’s examples are football, taxes, and AI chatbots. A site about home design might see topics like small kitchens, storage ideas, or paint colours, each holding dozens of related queries.
Think of it as the difference between the question and the errand. The question is what a person wants; the errand is what the AI system runs to answer it. Citations follow the errand, so a page that matches the errand’s wording stands a better chance than one that only matches the question.
That is also why the same page can be cited for queries you never targeted. If your page answers the errand well, it shows up. The portfolio view surfaces those accidental wins as topics, which is often the first surprise in the report.
The Three Numbers on Every Topic
Each topic row carries three measures, and all three are approximate. Topic Size is the approximate total citations across all sites for that topic over the period you chose. It tells you how much AI search demand the topic represents.
Sites Cited is the approximate number of sites appearing for queries in the topic. It tells you how crowded the topic is. A big topic with few sites cited is a kinder place to grow than a big topic where hundreds of sites already appear.
Queries is the approximate number of distinct grounding queries grouped into the topic. A topic with many queries is broad; one with few is narrow. Read the three together: size for demand, sites for competition, queries for breadth.
None of these numbers is exact, and Microsoft is open about that. The report is built on AI-generated classification and ecosystem aggregates, so the numbers are directional by design.
A worked reading helps. A topic with a large size, few sites cited, and many queries is broad demand with thin competition: a good place to expand. A topic with a large size, many sites cited, and few queries is a crowded corner where each query is fought over.
Your own citations are the third leg. A topic where you already hold citations and the size is large is proven ground. A topic where you hold none but the size is large is a gap worth pricing, not a gap worth chasing blindly.
Opportunity Queries: Where You Could Grow
Below the topic table sits the list most people will open first: Top Opportunity Queries. These are the strongest queries across your whole portfolio where other sites appear and yours does not.
It is a cross-topic read, not a per-topic one. The list pulls the best gaps from everywhere you have a presence, so the top rows are the ones worth reading before anything else.
Citation volumes here are shown as ranges, not exact counts. A range still tells you whether a gap is large or small, which is enough to rank your work. Do not treat a range as a promise of traffic.
Watch for branded queries in this list. A competitor’s brand name can appear as an opportunity, and chasing it with a page is usually wasted effort. Microsoft gives the example of a shoe shop seeing a rival brand listed inside a running shoes topic. Treat those rows as noise.
Judge each opportunity by whether you can answer it better than the page currently cited. If your site has no page on the subject, the gap is a content brief. If you have a page that is thin or outdated, the gap is a refresh brief. The list does not distinguish the two; you must.
Ignore the bottom of the list on a first pass. The strongest queries sit at the top by design, and a small team will do more good closing five strong gaps than skimming fifty weak ones.
Inside a Topic: What You Own and What Is Open
Click any topic and you reach its detail page. Three cards sit at the top: the topic size, your own citations inside the topic, and the number of queries in it. Below them, the queries split into two tables.
Your Grounding Queries lists the top queries in the topic where your site already appears. This is the half you own. It lines up with the data you already know from Citations and Pages.
Opportunity Queries lists the top queries in the same topic where other sites appear and yours does not, again with volumes as ranges. Together, the two tables give you both halves of a topic: what you already own, and what is still open.
That split is the practical core of the tool. Owning half a topic tells you where you are strong; the open half tells you what to write next, in the same theme, rather than starting somewhere new.
The KPI cards matter because they stop you comparing unlike things. Your own citations in the topic tell you whether you are a player there or a stranger. Topic size tells you whether it is worth becoming one.
Use the two tables as a before-and-after record. Note which queries you own today, then check again next month after publishing. A query moving from the open table to your table is the clearest signal the tool gives that the work worked.
A Worked Example: Reading One Portfolio
Take a small home-design site. Its portfolio shows a topic called small kitchens, with a large size, a modest number of sites cited, and forty queries. Its own citations cluster there already.
Inside the topic, the owned table shows queries about storage and layouts. The open table shows queries about costs and materials, where other sites are cited and this one is not. The gap is specific: the site covers how, but not how much.
The plan writes itself: two pages on kitchen renovation costs and material choices, built to the depth of the pages already cited, then a re-check next month to see whether those queries moved tables. That is the whole tool in one topic.
How to Use It in Ten Minutes
Start with a one-month window if you want the freshest picture, or three months if you want a steadier one. Microsoft’s own guidance is to start with the topics where your citations are already concentrated, then work down the opportunity queries.
Pick one topic where you already have citations. Open it, read your grounding queries, then read the opportunity queries beside them. The gap between the two lists is your brief: pages that answer the open queries in the same theme, with the same depth as the pages that already get cited.
Do not try to cover every gap. Rank by topic size first, then by how crowded the topic is, then by whether you can genuinely answer the query better than the pages currently cited. A citation alone is not success; the page still has to deserve the click.
Use the thumbs up and thumbs down controls on every topic row and opportunity query. They feed the team working on the classification and the opportunity selection. If a topic does not describe your content, or a query is off the mark, mark it down.
Make it a monthly routine. Windows of one, two, or three months let you compare a fresh month against a quarter, so a single viral week does not mislead you. A gap that stays open across all three windows is structural; one that appears for a month may be a passing trend.
Write the brief from the query, not the topic label. The label is AI-generated and can be rough, but the query is real grounding activity. A brief built on the query answers what Bing’s AI actually asked for.
How It Differs From Google’s Report
Google’s Search Console report for AI features covers your own pages’ showing in AI answers, and our Search Console Generative AI Features Report guide walks through it. It does not rank topics by total citations across all sites, and it does not hand you a list of queries where rivals are cited and you are not.
That cross-site view is what Bing adds. Topic Size counts every site’s citations, and Sites Cited shows how many rivals share the topic. The opportunity list is built from the same cross-site data. It is a competitive view, not just a report on your own pages.
Bing’s earlier Topics view grouped only your own cited queries. The portfolio adds the ecosystem around them: demand, competition, and gaps. That is the step that turns a report into a plan.
One scope note: the underlying AI Performance data covers Microsoft Copilot, Bing AI summaries, and partner integrations. It says nothing about Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, or the Gemini app. Do not read a Bing gap as a gap everywhere.
That difference changes the workflow. Google’s report helps you tune pages you already have; Bing’s portfolio helps you choose pages you do not. One is optimisation, the other is planning, and most editorial teams need both.
It also changes how you report success. A Google win is a page gaining showings; a Bing win is a query moving from the opportunity table to your grounding table. Track the second kind explicitly, or the portfolio’s value stays invisible.
What It Cannot Tell You
The classification is AI-generated and can be imperfect. A query may land in a topic you would have labelled differently, and a topic may mix queries you would have split apart. Check the queries inside a topic before you trust its label.
Topics with too little site presence or ecosystem activity are not shown at all. An absent topic is not proof of an absent opportunity; it may only mean Bing lacks the data to show it.
The report names no competitor domains. You see counts and queries, not who is beating you. That keeps the focus on the query and the content, which is where you can actually act.
Finally, the numbers are ranges and approximations throughout. Microsoft’s own line is to treat them as directional signals for planning, not as a precise ledger. Use them to choose what to write, not to forecast traffic.
Nor does it tell you why a page was cited. The report shows the query and the page, not the passage or the reason. If a surprising page keeps getting cited, read it yourself and find what the AI system is lifting from it.
Treat the beta label as an instruction, not a warning. Microsoft is asking for thumbs on rows it got wrong, and those signals shape what gets fixed first. A portfolio you never correct stays rough; one you rate improves.
Background
Topics Portfolio is the newest view inside Bing Webmaster Tools’ AI Performance report, and the first to frame a site’s AI search presence as a set of topics with demand and competition attached. Earlier views listed cited pages and queries; the portfolio adds the ecosystem around them. For more on how AI search visibility is measured across engines, see our topics index.
Sources: Microsoft Bing: Topics Portfolio announcement; Exploding Topics: Bing Topics Portfolio gaps.
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