Microsoft has launched a beta feature called Topics Portfolio inside the AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools, and it does something the June release couldn't: it lists the specific queries where Bing's AI answers cite other sites but not yours. Bing labels these "grounding queries" — the search terms its AI uses to locate and cite content in Copilot answers, Bing's AI summaries, and select partner integrations. No date has been given for the feature to leave beta.

Where the feature lives and what it shows

Topics Portfolio sits in a new tab to the right of Citations & Pages in the AI Performance section. The first screen lists topics where Bing judges your site to have a "meaningful" presence, with three metrics per topic:

• Topic Size — an estimated total citation count across all sites for the topic over your chosen window, which Microsoft describes as a gauge of demand through its AI.
• Sites Cited — the approximate number of sites appearing for queries in that topic.
• Queries — the approximate number of distinct grounding queries within the topic.

Directly below the topics table sits "Top Opportunity Queries," a cross-topic list of queries where other websites get cited and yours doesn't. All citation volumes in that list appear as ranges, not exact counts. Data can be viewed over one-, two- or three-month windows.

Clicking any topic opens a detail page showing the topic's size, your citations within it, and its query count. Two tables follow: one for the topic's queries where your site already appears, and one for opportunity queries, again with citation ranges.

What changed since June?

The distinction matters. AI Performance went into public preview in February; the June updates added Topics, Intents, Citation Share and Compare. Those earlier Topics labels grouped only the grounding queries where your site was already cited. Microsoft says the portfolio view, ecosystem context and opportunity queries are the three things the report couldn't show before — you now get totals across all sites at topic level, plus the queries you're missing.

Citation Share, also introduced in June, gives your percentage of all citations for a grounding query. Bing states on its help page that Citation Share never reveals competitor domain names and exists to show your presence relative to others without exposing anyone else's data.

Which sites will actually see it?

There's a distribution caveat. The new view only appears when Bing has enough data on your site, and topics with too little site presence or ecosystem activity won't display. Smaller sites may see fewer listed items — or nothing at all. Publishers and larger content sites with heavy AI citation volume will get the fullest picture; thin or low-citation domains may find the tab effectively empty.

How reliable are the numbers?

Microsoft is explicit that this is directional, not ledger-grade. The topics are AI-generated, so a query can land under a label you'd disagree with. Branded searches can also show up as opportunities — Microsoft's own example is a shoe site seeing a competitor's brand search listed as an opportunity under the "Running Shoes" topic.

Microsoft's guidance in its own words: "Treat the numbers as directional signals for planning, not as a precise ledger."

Every opportunity query and topic row carries thumbs-up and thumbs-down feedback controls. Microsoft says that feedback goes to the team handling classification and opportunity selection and shapes what gets fixed first.

Why this matters for content teams

The practical value is gap analysis. Opportunity queries hand content teams a ready-made list of queries within their own topic areas where AI answers reference competitors but skip them — a starting point for coverage planning, filtered for the rival-brand noise. The limits are real, though: topic measurements are estimates, opportunity volumes come as ranges, and you can't track specific citation counts from them. Comparisons between topics are approximate at best.

Worth noting for anyone documenting workflows: Bing's AI Performance help page didn't cover Topics Portfolio at the time of the announcement, so the limits section of the blog post is the only written guidance so far.

Watch the help page and the feedback pipeline — Microsoft says ratings from those controls determine what the team fixes first, and with no beta-exit date announced, the feature's shape will likely shift before general availability.