What is Microsoft Copilot and AI answers in Bing?

Microsoft says Copilot runs on Bing's search index^[1]. When web search is on, Copilot writes a short query from the prompt, sends it to the Bing search service and composes its answer from what comes back^[4]. Same operator as Bing, so this is not third-party syndication.

What the figures measure: StatCounter's AI chatbot market share, October 2026. StatCounter does not describe how it measures AI chatbot share on the pages read, so no method is claimed here. StatCounter's label is “Microsoft Copilot”; this page is about Microsoft Copilot and AI answers in Bing. Source: StatCounter Global Stats, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0.

Stance recordedSays it uses structured data

A Microsoft Advertising post says schema helps "search engines and AI systems understand your content". The sentence does not name Copilot, and no page read says how Copilot uses markup when it composes an answer.^[1]

“Not documented” means the pages read do not say; it does not mean the format is ignored.

The research records 1 rich result type for Microsoft Copilot and AI answers in Bing: 1 with an unknown status. Each entry shows the schema.org types it is documented for, where the research records them. Valid markup can make a page eligible; it does not guarantee the result.

The research lists 1 crawler token for Microsoft Copilot and AI answers in Bing: the names a site uses in robots.txt rules, with what each one does where the source says.

• bingbot

  Bing's crawler. No separate Copilot crawler token is named on the pages read. The October 2026 post addresses its page-level AI preferences to Bingbot and says an Allow preference does not override a robots.txt rule that blocks Bingbot. The AI Performance post says Bing respects owner preferences expressed through robots.txt^[2]. The full Bing crawler list is on the Bing page. follows robots.txt.^[8]

The research records no markup testing tool of its own for Microsoft Copilot and AI answers in Bing.

Guidelines

structured data

Schema is described as code that helps machines read content. It is usually added as JSON-LD through a CMS or by a developer and can label content as a product, review, FAQ or event. Readers are sent to schema.org. The checklist advises schema, clear headings and modular layouts. Selection is not promised.^[1]

content parsing

Assistants break pages into smaller pieces that are judged for authority and relevance and then assembled into answers. Concise, self-contained, structured content (lists, tables, Q and A blocks, clear headings) is favored. Content hidden in tabs or expandable menus may not be rendered, PDFs lack structural signals and image-only information is read less accurately.^[1]

reporting

The AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools (public preview, 2026-02-10) covers Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing and select partner integrations. Metrics: Total Citations, Average Cited Pages, Grounding queries, page-level citation activity and trends. IndexNow is recommended. The post does not mention structured data.^[2]

legacy ai controls

Rules published 2023-09-22 for Bing Chat. No tag: content may appear in answers and may be used for training. NOCACHE: only the URL, title and snippet are shown and used. NOARCHIVE: not in answers, not linked and not used for training. Both tags: treated as NOCACHE. A page with either tag still appears in search results. NOCACHE alongside NOARCHIVE is recommended for paywalled articles.^[3]

ai training preference

Site level: a robots.txt group User-Agent: __usage_ai-training with Disallow: / or a path, and an optional Allow: /. Page level: <meta name="Bingbot" content="ai-training:disallow"> or the header X-Robots-Tag: Bingbot: ai-training:disallow. It covers use of content to modify the learned parameters of a generative model.^[8]

ai grounding preference

Page level only; there is no site-wide robots.txt form. <meta name="Bingbot" content="ai-grounding:disallow"> or the header X-Robots-Tag: Bingbot: ai-grounding:disallow; the alternative value is ai-grounding:disallowextended. Values: Allow (default), Disallow, and DisallowExtended, which keeps grounding to Microsoft-operated experiences and excludes third-party grounding services, named as Web IQ and the grounding API in Foundry. Indexing and ranking in traditional search is not grounding.^[8]

timeline

Announced 2026-10-30. 2026-12-15: temporary grounding transition preferences open in Bing Webmaster Tools for sites that use NoArchive or NoCache. 2027-02-01: Microsoft begins honoring the new preferences as it crawls. 2027-03-01: NoArchive and NoCache stop being read as training or grounding preferences. 2027-09-30: the temporary preferences expire, or earlier on recrawl. The new preferences replace NoArchive and NoCache with no direct mapping. The post names the IETF AI Preferences working group.^[8]

search eligibility

The preferences do not change eligibility for traditional Bing results. Disallowing grounding reduces brand visibility in AI experiences. The Bing search syndication API is not affected.^[8]

query flow

The query Copilot generates is a few words, not the full prompt. Queries sent to Bing do not affect search ranking, answers or features such as Rich Captions, or social features such as Auto Suggest.^[4]

These claims about Microsoft Copilot and AI answers in Bing came up in the research, but no page that could be read confirms them. They are kept apart, and nothing above rests on them.

• The Bing Webmaster Guidelines say how structured data is used for AI answers and grounding.

  Why it is open: Body not read by the researcher. The Bing research records what the Bing researcher read from this page.

  How it was checked

  Fetched the guidelines page^[5]. Only a generic shell title came back; the article body is rendered by JavaScript and was not returned. No browser tool was used.

• The Bing help FAQ on the new AI preferences adds detail beyond the October 2026 blog post.

  Why it is open: Body not read. The blog post^[8] is the source for every AI preference fact in this research.

  How it was checked

  Fetched the FAQ page^[9]. Only a generic shell title came back.

• Bing documents a crawler or fetcher that is specific to Copilot.

  Why it is open: Body not read, so no Copilot-specific token could be confirmed or ruled out. See the Bing page.

  How it was checked

  Fetched the Bing help page on which crawlers Bing uses^[6]. Only a generic shell title came back.

• Microsoft's support article on Copilot in Bing says where answers and citations come from.

  Why it is open: No content to read. A retired page is not a statement either way.

  How it was checked

  Fetched the support article^[7]. The page says the article has been retired.

• Copilot itself parses schema markup when it composes an answer.

  Why it is open: The only schema sentence^[1] speaks of search engines and AI systems in general. No page says how Copilot uses markup.

  How it was checked

  Read the Microsoft Advertising post^[1], the AI Performance post^[2], the Copilot web search page^[4] and the AI preferences post^[8].

The pages the research used for Microsoft Copilot and AI answers in Bing, numbered as cited above. Accessed November 10, 2026 unless shown.

1. 1.Optimizing Your Content for Inclusion in AI Search Answers · Microsoft · updated October 8, 2025
2. 2.Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools Public Preview · Microsoft · updated February 10, 2026
3. 3.Announcing new options for webmasters to control usage of their content in Bing Chat · Microsoft · updated September 22, 2023
4. 4.Data, privacy, and security for web search in Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft Copilot Chat | Microsoft Learn (canonical URL learn.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot/plan/manage-public-web-access; ms.date 2026-10-29) · Microsoft · updated November 4, 2026
5. 5.Bing Webmaster Tools - Help Documentation (generic shell title; article body not returned, page is JavaScript-rendered; read by the Bing researcher, see the Bing page) · MicrosoftPartly read
6. 6.Bing Webmaster Tools - Help Documentation (generic shell title; article body not returned, page is JavaScript-rendered; see the Bing page for Bing's crawler list) · MicrosoftPartly read
7. 7.This article has been retired | Microsoft Support · MicrosoftCould not be fetched
8. 8.Your content, your choice: clearer preferences for training and grounding · Microsoft · updated October 30, 2026
9. 9.Bing Webmaster Tools - Help Documentation (generic shell title; article body not returned; the Bing research titles this page FAQ - New AI Preferences) · MicrosoftPartly read

Market share figures: StatCounter Global Stats, AI chatbot market share, October 2026, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0.