Bing Topics Portfolio: What It Means for Australian Sites

AI Search News | Australia | 24 October 2026

Last updated: 24 October 2026

Microsoft announced Topics Portfolio, a beta feature inside the AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools, on 13 October 2026. It groups the grounding queries where your site appears in AI answers into themes, so Australian businesses can see how their Copilot and Bing AI visibility is spread across topics. Microsoft has not said it is live in Australia, so check your own account.

What happened

On 13 October 2026, Microsoft Bing published “Introducing Topics Portfolio (Beta) in AI Performance” on its webmaster blog, written by Krishna Madhavan, Saral Nigam and Vivek Jain of Microsoft Bing. The post describes a new tab inside the AI Performance report, which Microsoft first launched in public preview on 10 February 2026 as a way to see how publisher content appears across Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing and select partner integrations.

The original AI Performance report showed you the grounding queries where your site appears in AI answers and the pages cited for each one. Topics Portfolio adds a wider view. In Microsoft’s words, it “groups the grounding queries where your site appears into broader thematic clusters”, with examples such as football, taxes or AI chatbots, so you can see the shape of your presence “rather than one query at a time”.

How the report is laid out

According to the announcement, the Topics Portfolio tab sits next to Citations and Pages. It opens on a personalised list of topics where your site has a meaningful presence, with three ecosystem measures beside each topic:

• Topic Size: the approximate total citations across all sites for the topic over the selected period, a measure of how much AI search demand the topic represents.
• Sites Cited: the approximate number of sites appearing for queries in the topic, which shows how crowded it is.
• Queries: the approximate number of distinct grounding queries in the topic.

Below the topic table sits a section called Top Opportunity Queries. Microsoft describes these as the strongest queries across your whole portfolio where other sites appear and yours does not, with citation volumes shown as ranges rather than exact numbers. Clicking into a topic opens a detail page with three KPI cards (Topic Size, your own citations in the topic, and the number of queries) and two tables: Your Grounding Queries and Opportunity Queries. Reporting windows of one, two or three months are available.

The limits Microsoft states

Microsoft is upfront that this is a beta. The post says the view is built on AI-generated classification and ecosystem aggregates, and that you should “treat the numbers as directional signals for planning, not as a precise ledger”. It lists several limitations: topic classification can occasionally be imperfect, topics with insufficient site presence or ecosystem activity are not shown (so smaller sites may see a shorter list or may not see the feature at all), branded queries can appear as opportunities, and the size figures are approximate. Each topic row and opportunity query carries a thumbs up and thumbs down control for feedback.

Is it live in Australia?

Microsoft’s announcement does not mention Australia, regional availability or a rollout schedule. It says only that if there is sufficient data for your site, you will see the new tab inside the AI Performance report. That means availability appears to depend on how much AI search activity your site has, not on your country, but the post does not state this outright. Titan Blue has not independently confirmed whether any specific Australian site currently sees the tab.

The practical test is simple. Sign in to Bing Webmaster Tools, open AI Performance for your verified site, and look for the Topics tab next to Citations and Pages. If it is missing, that is consistent with Microsoft’s note that smaller sites may not see it yet. Microsoft also does not say how Copilot or Bing AI answers are weighted for Australian users, so treat any report as a read on the sites it measures, not a forecast of your traffic.

It is also worth remembering what the report does not cover. It describes visibility inside Microsoft’s AI experiences. It says nothing about Google AI Mode, ChatGPT or Perplexity, which is why it works best as one input alongside the testing we describe below. Our earlier analysis, Is AI Search Just Google? What the Numbers Say for Australian Businesses, explains why Australian businesses need a multi-engine view.

What we saw in Australian AI search this week

Bing’s new report is about grounding queries, the searches AI systems run to find sources for an answer. To see what that looks like from the buyer’s side, we ran our own spot check on 23 October 2026. The instrument was Google AI Mode, one buying query per city: “best physiotherapist in Perth”, “best physiotherapist in Adelaide” and “best physiotherapist in Sydney”. We chose physiotherapy because it is a local service where people ask an assistant for a recommendation and Microsoft’s topic clusters (for example, health) map neatly onto how clinics think about content. This is a small sample, not a study, and we did not test Copilot, ChatGPT or Perplexity.

Three patterns stand out. First, every recommendation in all three cities carried a visible star rating and review count, so review volume was part of what the answer displayed. Second, each clinic was tied to a specific suburb or street, which shows how heavily AI Mode leans on location clarity. Third, the Adelaide answer pointed to third-party booking platforms as places to check availability, a reminder that AI answers can send a buyer to a directory instead of the clinic’s own site. We are reporting what came back and drawing no conclusions about any individual business.

Why does this matter for a Bing report? Because the logic is the same on every engine. An assistant takes a buyer question, breaks it into sub-queries, finds pages that answer them and then cites or names sources. Bing’s Topics Portfolio finally gives site owners a Microsoft-side view of that process. Our spot check shows the output on the Google side. Together they describe the full loop of demand, grounding and citation.

What it means for Australian businesses

This is Titan Blue’s view, not Microsoft’s. We see three implications that apply nationally, not just to one city.

1. AI visibility is becoming something you can plan by topic

Until now most Australian businesses measured SEO by keyword and rank. AI answers do not work that way. A Brisbane accountant, a Perth physiotherapist or a Hobart builder gets cited because their site covers a topic with depth and clarity, not because one page ranks for one phrase. A topic view lines up with how AI systems really behave. If your Bing report shows a strong cluster around, say, tax returns for sole traders but nothing around payroll, you can see where content planning should go next.

2. The opportunity list is a content brief

The Top Opportunity Queries section lists queries where competitors are cited and you are not. For a Sydney law firm that might be questions about conveyancing timelines. For an Adelaide tradie it might be local licensing questions. For a regional Australian retailer it might be shipping and returns queries. These are real questions that AI systems asked while building answers, which makes them more valuable than a guessed keyword list. Microsoft warns that branded queries can appear here, so filter those out and work from the rest.

3. Bing is easy to ignore and increasingly hard to ignore

Many Australian owners write Bing off because Google dominates search. That has been a reasonable position for traditional search. But Microsoft is investing in reporting for its AI surfaces, and Copilot is built into Windows and Microsoft 365, which are everywhere in Australian offices. Whether or not Bing drives much of your traffic today, verifying your site in Bing Webmaster Tools costs nothing and gives you a view into AI citations that other engines do not yet offer in this form. Verification takes minutes, and a site that is verified now will have history to analyse when the beta matures.

Caution is also warranted. The feature is a beta, the classification is automated, and smaller sites may not see it. A local business with modest traffic should not expect a rich dashboard on day one. For those businesses, structured testing across engines is the better early signal, which is exactly what our AI Search Index spot checks provide.

What to do now

1. Verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools. Without verification you cannot see AI Performance at all. Add every domain you own, including any separate brand or shop domains.
2. Open AI Performance and look for the Topics tab. Select a three month window first, since Microsoft notes you can choose one, two or three months, and note which topics already hold your citations. Record the numbers each month so you have your own trend line, because the figures are approximate.
3. Turn the opportunity queries into a content plan. Remove branded queries, group the rest by theme, then write or improve one page per cluster. Each page should answer the question in the first paragraph, name your location and services plainly, and use clear headings. Our Answer Engine Optimisation and Generative Engine Optimisation services are built around this process.
4. Make location and service signals unmistakable. Our spot check showed AI Mode tying each clinic to a suburb, a street and named services. Mark up your business with LocalBusiness structured data, keep your Google Business Profile complete, and keep your review count growing.
5. Check the directories that AI answers point to. If assistants send buyers to booking or listing platforms in your industry, make sure your profile there is accurate and consistent with your website.
6. Test several engines, not one. Ask Google AI Mode, Copilot, ChatGPT and Perplexity the questions your customers ask, in your city, and record who is named. Repeat monthly. Our AI Ready Check is the quickest starting point.

For more weekly coverage of AI search changes affecting Australian businesses, see the Titan Blue AI Search News hub, and our comparison Best AEO and GEO Agencies in Australia (2026) if you are weighing up help.

Why the topic view matters beyond Bing

It is tempting to treat any single engine’s report as a niche tool. We would argue the opposite for Topics Portfolio. It is one of the first mainstream attempts to show site owners the thematic structure of AI citations, and other platforms will be under pressure to follow. Whether or not they do, the discipline it encourages is useful today: know your topics, know how crowded each one is, and know where the open questions sit.

Consider how this plays out for different Australian businesses. A national retailer with hundreds of product pages may find that AI engines cite them heavily for a handful of product categories and barely at all for buying guides. A professional services firm in Melbourne may find that its citations cluster around one service while three others, which generate most of its revenue, appear nowhere. A tourism operator in regional Queensland may discover that AI answers cite aggregator sites for every planning question, leaving the operator’s own site out of the picture. In each case, the fix is the same: publish clear, specific, well structured answers on the topics that matter and make sure the site is easy for machines to read.

The reality for most small and medium businesses is that they will not have enough data to see Topics Portfolio for some time. That is not a reason to wait. The same thinking can be applied by hand today. List your ten most valuable services, write the twenty questions a buyer asks about each, then check whether your site answers them directly. Compare that list with what AI Mode returns for your city. Where a competitor is named and you are not, you have found an opportunity.

One more point on expectations. Microsoft states that the numbers are directional and that classification is AI-generated. Treat the report as a conversation starter for your content team, not as a scorecard to report to your board. Month on month movement within your own site is more meaningful than comparing your numbers with anyone else’s. And because the report describes citations rather than clicks, pair it with your normal analytics so you understand whether visibility is turning into enquiries.

Finally, remember the usual rules still apply. AI systems favour pages that are accurate, specific, recent and easy to quote. Thin pages, vague claims and inconsistent business details work against you on every engine. If your website is slow, hard to navigate on a phone or missing basic structured data, fix that before you chase any dashboard. A strong foundation is what makes every new reporting tool useful.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Topics Portfolio in Bing Webmaster Tools?

It is a beta tab inside the AI Performance report, announced by Microsoft Bing on 13 October 2026. It groups the grounding queries where your site appears in AI answers into thematic clusters and shows topic size, sites cited and number of queries for each, plus a list of opportunity queries where other sites are cited and yours is not.

Is Topics Portfolio available in Australia?

Microsoft’s announcement does not mention Australia or any region. It says you will see the tab if there is sufficient data for your site. Whether your Australian site sees it depends on your account, so sign in to Bing Webmaster Tools and check the AI Performance report.

Does this report cover Google AI Mode or ChatGPT?

No. According to Microsoft, AI Performance reports on how content appears across Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing and select partner integrations. For Google AI Mode, ChatGPT and Perplexity you need separate testing, which is what our weekly AI Search Index spot checks are designed to do.

How accurate are the numbers?

Microsoft describes them as directional signals for planning, not a precise ledger. Topic size, sites cited and query counts are approximate, opportunity citation volumes are shown as ranges, and the topic classification is AI-generated and can occasionally be wrong.

What should a small Australian business do first?

Verify your website in Bing Webmaster Tools, check whether the AI Performance report and Topics tab are available, and run your own buying questions through several AI engines in your city. Then improve the pages that answer those questions. We can help through our AEO services.