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Topics Portfolio Bing is a beta tab within the AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools, launched by Microsoft on October 13, 2026. It groups queries where Bing's AI cites your site by topic, measures the size and competition of each topic, and lists queries where other sites are cited instead of yours.
Until now, the report answered a single question: where is my content cited? Topics Portfolio adds a second, much more useful question for building an editorial calendar: what other topics could I be cited for? Here is what the tab shows, how to read it, and what to expect during the beta.
What is Topics Portfolio in Bing Webmaster Tools?
Topics Portfolio is based on grounding queries, which the Bing AI Performance report, its performance report dedicated to AI answers, has been displaying since February 2026. These are the formulations the AI uses to retrieve the content it then cites in its responses. A grounding query is therefore not necessarily the exact question asked by the user.
The report covers Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing, and certain partner integrations. Topics Portfolio groups these queries into broad themes (Bing cites football, taxes, or AI chatbots as examples) and places each theme within its ecosystem: how many AI citations it represents, how many cited sites share them, and which queries you are missing out on. Bing specifies that the themes and opportunities are derived from your own site's presence, not from a generic list.
This is another step toward measurement tools for GEO, the optimization of visibility in AI-generated responses. The details of the feature are presented in theofficial Bing announcement.
What has changed since the June 2026 Topics update
Topics Portfolio is not the first thematic grouping in the report. In June 2026, Bing added four preview features: Intents, Topics, Citation Share, and Compare. These initial Topics classified your grounding queries by theme, without any context regarding other sites.
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How do I access the Topics Portfolio tab?
The tab is located in Bing Webmaster Tools, Microsoft's free interface for site owners. If your site is not yet registered there, you must verify it first.
- Log in to Bing Webmaster Tools and select your site.
- Open the AI Performance report.
- Click the Topics Portfolio tab, located next to Citations & Pages.
- Choose a one, two, or three-month period.
The tab only appears if Bing has sufficient data on your site; its absence is not a configuration issue.
What do Topic Size, Sites Cited, and Queries measure?
The tab's home page lists the topics where your site has a significant presence. Each topic is accompanied by three ecosystem metrics, all of which are approximations.
Be careful not to confuse the size of a topic with your standing within it. Topic Size aggregates citations from all sites: a very active topic may only yield a few citations for you. It is also not a Google search volume or a traffic indicator.
The most telling cross-reference remains Topic Size versus Sites Cited. A high-weight topic with few cited sites does not require the same effort as a saturated one.
Grounding queries and opportunity queries: how to read a topic
Below the topic table, the Top Opportunity Queries list gathers the strongest queries across your entire portfolio where other sites are cited but yours is not. Citation volumes are provided in ranges, not exact values.
Clicking on a topic opens its detail page. Three cards display the topic size, your site's citations within that topic, and the number of queries. Below, the queries are divided into two tables:
- Your Grounding Queries : the main queries for the topic where your site already appears, consistent with the data in the Citations & Pages tab;
- Opportunity Queries : the main queries for the same topic where other sites are cited instead of you, with citation ranges.
Bing presents these two tables as the two halves of a topic: what you already own and what remains open. Each row also features a thumbs-up and a thumbs-down icon to flag a misclassified topic or an off-topic opportunity to Bing.
How to leverage Topics Portfolio in a GEO strategy?
Bing recommends starting with the topics where your citations are already concentrated, then drilling down into the opportunity queries. An opportunity is not an automatic order for an article: it is a lead to verify before committing to production.
- Start with your strong topics. Choose the three-month window, the longest available, to smooth out variations.
- Sort the opportunities. Exclude competitor brand queries and those that fall outside your offering.
- Test the query. Run it in Copilot and Bing to see which pages are cited and in what format: guide, comparison, or FAQ.
- Choose the action. Enrich an existing page that doesn't answer the question well, create a new one only if no content covers the need, or discard the query.
- Link theme pages. A well-covered theme functions like a semantic cocoon, with a pillar page and satellite content linked together.
- Measure. Track citations in AI Performance and traffic in your analytics tool, as the report does not count clicks.
For pages that are indexed but rarely cited, Bing has recommended since February using clear titles, tables, FAQ sections, data-backed assertions, and up-to-date content. These principles align with those of good SEO content strategy.
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What are the limitations of the beta?
Bing asks that you read the numbers as signals for planning, not as a precise record. The announcement lists four limitations:
- AI-driven classification : a query may end up in a theme you would have named differently;
- Data threshold : themes without sufficient presence or activity are not displayed, and smaller sites may not see the tab;
- Brand queries : a competitor's brand may appear as an opportunity;
- Approximate figures : Topic Size, Sites Cited, and Queries are estimates, and opportunity volumes are provided in ranges.
The report counts citations, not clicks or traffic, and the announcement provides no beta release date. Most importantly, it only covers the Microsoft ecosystem: it does not include Google and its AI Overviews, ChatGPT, or Perplexity.
An empty box therefore does not mean zero, and an absence on Bing says nothing about your visibility elsewhere. For a complete view, Topics Portfolio should be cross-referenced with other GEO tools and finds its place in the SEO reporting monthly report.
How does datashake support you with AI visibility?
Topics Portfolio is a free and official source, but it is limited to Bing. Its data is best cross-referenced with the tracking of responses from Google, ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity, which the datashake SEO and GEO team conducts continuously for its clients.
TheSEO and GEO agency datashake method starts with a visibility audit to identify missing topics. This is followed by content structured to answer the question first, technical and E-E-A-T optimization, and then continuous management of your presence in AI responses.
Launched in 2019 by two former employees of Google's European headquarters, datashake supports over 1,000 advertisers. A free audit of your SEO and GEO visibility will help you know where to start.
FAQ
Why doesn't the Topics Portfolio tab appear?
Bing only displays the tab when it has sufficient data on the site. Topics where presence or activity is too low are hidden, and small sites may not see the feature at all.
What is a grounding query?
It is a phrasing that Bing's AI uses to search for the content it then cites in its responses. The AI Performance report displays a sample of these. It does not necessarily correspond to the user's exact question.
Does Topics Portfolio provide the names of competitor sites?
Bing's announcement does not mention it, and the Citation Share metric added in June 2026 does not reveal competing domains. To find out who is being cited for an opportunity query, the simplest method is to run the query in Copilot and note the displayed sources.
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