On October 13, 2026, Microsoft introduced Bing Topics Portfolio, a beta feature inside the AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools. Instead of only showing where a site has been cited in AI-generated answers, the new view groups related grounding queries into themes and highlights queries where other sites receive citations but the reviewed site does not.
The central takeaway: a missing AI citation is a research signal, not automatically a reason to publish another article. It sounds like a ready-made content gap list. It is not. The figures are approximate, the topic labels are AI-generated, and a missing citation says nothing about commercial value. For B2B SaaS teams, the release is most useful as a way to decide what deserves investigation, not as a list of articles to commission.
What Microsoft added to AI Performance
In Microsoft’s Topics Portfolio announcement, the company describes a new tab alongside Citations & Pages for verified sites with enough data. The feature sits within Bing Webmaster Tools AI Performance, which measures citation activity across Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing, and selected partner integrations.
The portfolio page presents themes where the site already has a meaningful presence. Each theme includes three approximate ecosystem measures. The accompanying opportunity list adds a fourth piece: queries where other sources have appeared and the site’s pages have not.
| Portfolio measure | What it shows | What it does not establish |
|---|---|---|
| Topic Size | Approximate total citations across all sites in that topic | Exact search volume, traffic, or buyer demand |
| Sites Cited | Approximate number of sites cited within the topic | Competitive difficulty or the quality of those sites |
| Queries | Approximate number of distinct grounding queries in the topic | The original wording of users’ prompts |
| Opportunity queries | Grounding queries where other sites are cited and yours is not | A guaranteed ranking opportunity or a reason to publish a new page |
Opening a topic reveals your existing grounding queries and separate opportunity queries. The sitewide Top Opportunity Queries view brings the larger gaps into one place. Opportunity citation volumes appear as ranges, and the interface lets users select one-, two-, or three-month windows.
There is a catch: the Topics Portfolio tab appears only when Microsoft has sufficient site and ecosystem data. Not seeing it does not mean a site has zero AI citations.
How to access Topics Portfolio in Bing Webmaster Tools
Sign in to Bing Webmaster Tools, select a verified site, open the AI Performance report and look for the Topics Portfolio view. Microsoft uses both “Topics Portfolio” and “Topics” in its announcement and interface instructions, so the tab label may differ. If the view is available for your site, select a one-, two-, or three-month reporting window, review your existing topics and then investigate the opportunity queries. Microsoft says the feature requires sufficient site and ecosystem data, so an absent tab is not proof that your pages have never been cited in AI-generated answers.
How October’s portfolio differs from the June Topics feature
In Microsoft’s June 2026 Bing Webmaster updates, Microsoft introduced Topics, Intents, Citation Share, and Compare. That preview organized the grounding queries associated with a site’s citations into themes and added a relative citation-presence metric.
October’s update goes further by showing approximate topic-wide activity and queries where other sources appear without your site.
| Capability | June Topics preview | October Topics Portfolio beta |
|---|---|---|
| Main view | Themes already associated with your citations | A portfolio of existing themes plus gaps to investigate |
| Context | Topic groupings and separate Citation Share reporting | Approximate topic-wide citation totals, sites cited, and query counts |
| Missing coverage | No dedicated topic-level list of queries where your site is absent | Opportunity queries within topics and across the portfolio |
Neither feature gives a complete competitor-domain report. Citation Share is a relative measure for a grounding query, while an opportunity query shows that another site was cited. Neither tells you that a competitor won a customer.
The opportunity list is useful, but the word “query” needs context
A grounding query is a phrase an AI system uses while retrieving source material to build an answer. It is not necessarily the exact question a person typed. That distinction matters because editors could otherwise mistake an internal retrieval phrase for proven customer language.
Consider an illustrative B2B SaaS example. A security platform may already earn citations for broad SOC 2 explanations while appearing to have gaps around evaluating compliance software or preparing for an audit. The second cluster could be more relevant to its buyers even if its Topic Size is smaller.
The gap is only a starting hypothesis. The team still needs to check whether its product serves that need, whether an existing page answers it, and whether the information being retrieved elsewhere is evidence it could credibly provide.
Branded suggestions deserve particular care. Microsoft warns that competitor-brand names can appear in opportunity lists. As our coverage of Microsoft Clarity branded queries explains, brand-specific retrieval and broader category discovery should be assessed separately. A competitor’s name appearing in a gap report does not make it a suitable keyword target.
This is where AI citation opportunities differ from conventional keyword research. The list shows patterns in Microsoft’s supported AI retrieval systems, not monthly search volume, purchase intent, or an estimate of the traffic a page could win.
How SaaS marketers should read citation activity
The most tempting mistake is treating Topic Size as a market-size number. Microsoft defines it as approximate citation activity, not the number of people looking for a solution. A topic can have substantial citation activity and very little relevance to a company’s ideal customer profile.
A second mistake is equating citations with traffic. Bing’s citation data shows that a page was displayed as a source in supported AI answers. It does not reveal where the citation appeared, whether it was clicked, or whether it influenced a conversion.
Our guide to AI search visibility metrics separates source citations, brand mentions, referral visits, and pipeline influence. Bing Topics Portfolio belongs in the first category. Revenue attribution still requires analytics, CRM data, and careful interpretation.
Coverage is another boundary. Microsoft-side visibility should not be blended into a universal AI search score. A site’s absence in Bing Topics Portfolio tells you nothing definitive about its presence in ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini. The AI search SEO framework explains why each system needs its own evidence and measurement approach; a Gemini visibility tracker can provide a separate view of that platform.
A five-step workflow for turning gaps into content decisions
The strongest use of Bing Topics Portfolio is to validate a few promising gaps, not generate an automatic content calendar. The steps below summarize the editorial decision; a full walkthrough belongs in a separate tutorial.
- Start with three months of data. Use the longer available window to identify recurring themes before reacting to a short-lived change. Record the site property and dates reviewed.
- Rank relevance before volume. Select topics tied to your customers’ problems, implementation questions, or buying criteria. Ignore high-volume themes that sit outside your market.
- Remove false opportunities. Filter out off-category queries and competitor-brand phrases unless there is a legitimate comparison intent. Use the beta’s thumbs-down feedback when classification is poor.
- Match each gap to an existing page. Check whether a product, use-case, documentation, or educational page already owns that intent. Then review current AI answers as research, without assuming they reproduce the historical answer behind the report.
- Make one focused improvement and measure separately. Add missing proof, update outdated information, clarify an answer, or build a new page only when the need is genuinely distinct. Review later citation changes alongside qualified visits and pipeline, without claiming a causal result from one before-and-after comparison.
For teams improving existing pages, SEO content optimization is a useful next step. The practical goal is stronger, more verifiable information, not inserting every opportunity query into a heading.
A simple prioritization rule follows from this: high business relevance and a credible information gap beat a large Topic Size every time. A narrow implementation question may be commercially valuable. A broad informational theme may be visible without helping a single buyer move closer to a decision.
What the Topics Portfolio beta cannot resolve
Microsoft explicitly calls the classification and ecosystem totals directional. Topic labels can be imperfect, opportunity counts are presented as ranges, and some topics are omitted when data is insufficient. The company has not published a minimum threshold for the tab to appear.
There is also no direct click, lead, or conversion report inside Topics Portfolio. Existing AI Performance reporting can provide citation and page-level context, but it cannot show the full user prompt or reconstruct an individual AI answer from an aggregated grounding query.
Finally, the October announcement does not describe a dedicated Topics Portfolio export or API, or provide a date for removing the beta label. Those omissions matter for large editorial teams that want a repeatable workflow, but they should not be confused with a claim that the broader AI Performance report has no export features.
What content teams should watch next
Three developments will determine whether this becomes a regular part of SEO planning: broader availability for smaller sites, better topic classification for specialist categories, and clearer ways to compare portfolio changes over time.
Microsoft has built thumbs-up and thumbs-down controls into topics and opportunity rows. That feedback mechanism is worth using, especially when a specialist B2B category is mislabelled. It is a beta, and treating every suggestion as correct would defeat the point of testing it.
Teams should also watch whether topic-level AI reporting becomes easier to combine with existing citation and business reporting. Until then, keeping a dated review log and a short list of validated content changes is more useful than building a dashboard around uncertain totals.
OneMetrik Takeaway
The new opportunity-query list is the headline feature. The more important change is that Bing Topics Portfolio lets content teams compare current AI citation presence with nearby gaps in the same topic.
At OneMetrik, we would begin with commercially relevant themes, discard branded noise, improve an existing page before creating another, and review results over time. We would report citation movement separately from sessions, qualified leads, and pipeline.
A missing citation tells you where to investigate. It does not tell you what to publish or whether the work will produce revenue.