Microsoft added Topics Portfolio to Bing Webmaster Tools on October 13. Here is what the new AI citation gap report means for service businesses and how to use it this week.
Ido Cohen · Published 2026-10-24 · SEO & Search
Microsoft just handed service businesses a competitive intelligence tool that Google still refuses to build — and almost nobody in the trades, healthcare, or home services world is using it yet.
On October 13, 2026, Microsoft added a beta feature called Topics Portfolio to the AI Performance report inside Bing Webmaster Tools. It tells you which broad topic areas your website gets cited in when Bing's AI and Microsoft Copilot generate answers — and, more importantly, it shows you the specific queries where competitors are being cited and you are not. That "opportunity query" list is the part worth your immediate attention.
If you run a plumbing company, a dental practice, a law firm, or any other service business that depends on local search traffic, here is why you should log into Bing Webmaster Tools before you do anything else today.
The new feature does two things that the existing AI Performance report could not do before. According to the announcement published on the Bing Webmaster Blog on October 13, 2026, Topics Portfolio groups the grounding queries where a site is cited in AI-generated answers into broad topic clusters, shows how big and how crowded each topic is across all sites, and lists "opportunity queries" — grounding queries in your topics where other sites are cited in AI answers and yours is not. Microsoft's own announcement described it as showing "the thematic shape" of a site's presence in AI Search.
To find it, log into Bing Webmaster Tools, open the AI Performance tab, and look for a Topics Portfolio tab sitting next to the existing Citations & Pages view. The tab only appears if your site has enough citation data — so if you have never verified your site with Bing Webmaster Tools, do that first.
The three columns that matter:
Microsoft was clear that these numbers are directional, not precise. As the Bing Webmaster Blog put it: "Treat the numbers as directional signals for planning, not as a precise ledger." That is honest and appropriate — but directional signals are still genuinely useful when you have none at all.
Bing now gives service business owners something Google explicitly does not: a native AI citation gap list.
As of October 2026, Google Search Console has no separate AI report, no citation count, and no topic grouping. Google folds AI Overviews and AI Mode traffic into the general "Web" search type in the Performance report. You cannot tell from Google Search Console alone whether an AI Overview cited your HVAC company or a competitor's when someone searched "best furnace repair near me."
Bing Topics Portfolio does not cover Google, ChatGPT, or Perplexity — it covers Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing, and select partner integrations. That is a real limitation. But Bing and Copilot together reach hundreds of millions of users monthly, and Copilot is embedded into Windows, Microsoft 365, and Edge by default. For many service categories — particularly in B2B, financial services, and legal — Bing's share of AI-assisted searches is higher than general market share figures suggest.
The opportunity queries feature is the specific capability that has no equivalent elsewhere right now. For the first time, a major search platform is showing you a native gap list built from actual AI citation data — not from keyword tools, not from third-party scrapers, but from the engine itself.
Before you act on Topics Portfolio data, it is worth understanding what a grounding query actually is.
When a user asks Bing's AI a question — say, "how do I know if my home's foundation is damaged?" — the AI does not just hallucinate an answer. It retrieves content from indexed web pages to ground its response. The queries it uses to retrieve that content are called grounding queries. They are often different from the exact words the user typed. The AI might use a grounding query like "signs of foundation damage in residential homes" to pull in a local foundation repair company's service page, then cite that company in its answer.
This matters because:
The most actionable part of Topics Portfolio is the Top Opportunity Queries section: grounding queries within your topics where other sites are cited in AI answers and yours is not, shown with citation volumes as ranges.
Think of this as a content gap report built by the AI engine itself. Here is how to turn those opportunity queries into a concrete action plan:
Step 1 — Export and categorize. Pull your opportunity queries and group them by service line. An HVAC company might see opportunities clustering around "heat pump efficiency in cold climates," "thermostat calibration," and "emergency AC repair" — three very different content needs.
Step 2 — Check what is already ranking there. For each opportunity cluster, search Bing manually and look at which competitors are being cited. Read their cited pages. Are they answering the question more directly than you? Are they using Q&A formats, structured data, or longer explanations?
Step 3 — Match content to grounding intent. AI search engines reward content that directly and specifically answers a question. A service page that says "We offer emergency HVAC repair" is not the same as a page that explains "What to do if your furnace stops working at night: steps, costs, and when to call." The second is a grounding-worthy page. The first is a brochure.
Step 4 — Monitor Sites Cited for competitive density. If a topic shows 80+ sites cited, winning citation share there will take time. Start with opportunity queries in topics where Sites Cited is lower — that is where you can move fastest.
Step 5 — Look at Topic Size to prioritize investment. A topic with a high Topic Size but low Sites Cited is a high-demand, lower-competition opportunity. Prioritize those clusters for new content creation over the next 60 days.
The fact that Google Search Console has no equivalent to Topics Portfolio is not an accident. It is a strategic choice — and it has real consequences for how you manage your AI search visibility.
Right now, if you want to understand your Google AI Overviews or AI Mode citation presence, you have three imperfect options: third-party rank trackers that scrape AI answers (expensive and incomplete), Google Search Console's general Performance report (which lumps AI-assisted clicks with traditional ones), or manual spot-checking of searches (slow and unscalable). None of those give you a competitor gap list.
Bing Topics Portfolio is not a substitute for Google data — but it is a real signal. If you are consistently missing from Bing AI answers on queries where competitors are cited, the same content gap likely exists on Google. The grounding query patterns across AI search engines are similar enough that fixing your Bing citation gaps will typically improve your Google AI citation presence too, because the underlying fix is always the same: write more direct, specific, question-answering content about your services.
Service businesses that use Bing Topics Portfolio as a content planning input — not just a Bing-specific metric — will get more mileage out of it than those who treat it as a secondary-engine curiosity.
No new tool deserves a completely uncritical write-up. Here is what Topics Portfolio does not give you:
None of these limitations make Topics Portfolio useless. They make it a planning tool, not a reporting tool — and for service businesses that currently have zero AI citation data from any native platform, even a planning tool is a significant step forward.
Monday: Log into Bing Webmaster Tools (webmaster.bing.com). If your site is not verified, do it now — it takes less than 10 minutes. Navigate to AI Performance and check whether a Topics Portfolio tab is visible. If your site is newer or lower-traffic, the tab may not appear yet; check back in two weeks after ensuring your site is crawled and indexed.
Tuesday: If the tab is live, export your opportunity queries. Copy them into a spreadsheet and sort by citation volume range (highest first). Pick the top five queries and manually search them in Bing to see which competitors are appearing in AI-generated answers.
Wednesday: Audit your existing service pages against those five opportunity queries. Ask: does any page on my site directly and specifically answer what the grounding query is asking? If not, that is your content gap.
Thursday: Write or update one page to directly answer the top opportunity query. Use a Q&A format at the top, cover related follow-up questions a user might have, and include specific numbers, local context, and your service area.
Friday: Review your Topic Size and Sites Cited columns to identify one high-demand, low-competition topic cluster for a longer-form content investment over the next 30 days. Add it to your editorial calendar.
One more thing: share the Topics Portfolio data with whoever writes your content — whether that is an internal team member, a freelancer, or an agency. The biggest mistake service businesses make with AI search is treating it as an SEO problem to hand off. Your subject matter expertise — the specific answers only a licensed plumber, dentist, or financial advisor can give — is exactly what AI search engines are grounding their answers in. The people who write your content need to know what questions the AI is actually asking.
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What is Bing Topics Portfolio, and where do I find it?
Topics Portfolio is a beta tab inside the AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools, launched October 13, 2026. It groups the grounding queries where your site is cited in Bing and Microsoft Copilot AI answers into topic clusters, shows the total citation demand for each topic, and lists opportunity queries where competitors are cited and your site is not. To find it, log in at webmaster.bing.com, go to AI Performance, and look for the Topics tab next to Citations & Pages. The tab only appears if your site has enough AI citation data.
Does Topics Portfolio show Google AI Overviews or ChatGPT citation data?
No. Topics Portfolio covers Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing, and select partner integrations only. It does not include Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, or any other AI search engine. That said, the content gaps it reveals — places where your site is not answering specific questions well enough to be cited — are typically the same gaps affecting your presence across all AI search engines, because the underlying quality standard is similar.
Does Google Search Console have an equivalent to Topics Portfolio?
Not as of October 2026. Google Search Console folds AI Overviews and AI Mode traffic into the general Web search type in the Performance report. There is no separate AI citation count, no topic grouping, and no competitor gap list in Google Search Console. Bing Topics Portfolio is currently the only native, engine-provided AI citation gap tool available to webmasters at no cost.
What are "opportunity queries," and how should a service business use them?
Opportunity queries are grounding queries within your established topic areas where Bing's AI is citing other websites but not yours. They represent specific questions your target customers are asking where you have zero AI citation presence. For a service business, each opportunity query is essentially a content brief: a specific question you should answer directly on your website so that the AI has something to cite when it generates an answer about that topic.
How accurate are the citation numbers in Topics Portfolio?
Microsoft is transparent that all figures in Topics Portfolio are approximate. The Bing Webmaster Blog specifically says to treat the numbers as "directional signals for planning, not as a precise ledger." Topic Size, Sites Cited, and citation volume ranges for opportunity queries are estimates, and AI topic classification may place some queries in clusters you would categorize differently. Use the data to identify general priorities and content gaps — not to report precise AI market share to a client or leadership team.
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