Microsoft Copilot is Microsoft’s AI assistant, available on the web, in Windows, in the Edge browser, in mobile apps, and inside Microsoft 365 products. When Copilot answers questions that need current information, it grounds its responses in Bing search results and cites sources. That means your visibility in Copilot depends heavily on your visibility in Bing: whether Bing has crawled and indexed your pages, how well they rank, how clearly they answer questions, and how accurately Bing understands your business. For most businesses, improving Copilot visibility starts with a task many have never done: taking Bing seriously.
This guide is for business owners and marketers who want to understand how Copilot finds information and how to improve their chances of being cited. I will explain what Copilot is, why it matters in 2026, how Bing powers its answers, a step by step strategy using Bing Webmaster Tools, IndexNow, and Bing Places, how to measure results, common mistakes, a practical example, and a checklist. Copilot is one of several AI platforms covered in my AI visibility guide.
What Is Microsoft Copilot?
Copilot is the brand Microsoft uses for its AI assistants. The consumer version of Copilot answers questions, helps with research, writes and summarizes text, and assists with everyday tasks. It is built into Windows and the Edge browser, and available through apps and the web. Microsoft 365 Copilot brings similar capabilities into Word, Excel, Outlook, Teams, and other workplace tools, where it can draw on an organization’s own documents and, when permitted, on the web.
For web based questions, Copilot uses Bing to retrieve current information and typically shows citations linking to its sources. Bing also integrates AI generated answers into its own search results. The common foundation is Bing’s search index.
Why Does Copilot Matter in 2026?
It reaches people where they already work
Copilot is built into Windows, Edge, and Microsoft 365, which are used by very large numbers of businesses and professionals. For B2B companies in particular, this is significant: buyers may research suppliers, compare tools, or look up definitions without ever opening a separate search engine.
Bing’s index powers more than Bing
Bing’s search index is used by several other search experiences and partners, and Bing has historically been one of the sources for other AI search tools. Improving your presence in Bing therefore has value beyond Bing itself.
Most competitors ignore it
Many businesses focus entirely on Google and have never verified their site in Bing Webmaster Tools or claimed their Bing Places listing. That neglect creates an opportunity: modest effort can produce a meaningful advantage.
AI discovery is spread across platforms
Buyers no longer rely on a single search engine. One person might start in Google, ask ChatGPT a follow up question, and then check a supplier in Copilot while writing an internal recommendation. Each platform draws on different indexes. Being well represented in Bing is part of making sure your business shows up consistently wherever that research happens.
How Copilot Uses Bing
Crawling and indexing with Bingbot
Bing discovers and indexes pages using its crawler, Bingbot. If Bingbot cannot access your site, or Bing has not indexed your important pages, they are unlikely to be used in Copilot answers.
Retrieval and ranking
When Copilot needs web information, it sends queries to Bing, retrieves relevant results, and selects passages to build its answer. Pages that rank well in Bing for the relevant queries are the likely candidates.
Passage selection and citations
Clear, specific passages that directly answer the question are easier to use and cite. The same principles that help with other AI platforms apply here, as explained in my guides to Perplexity optimization and Gemini and Google AI Mode.
Business and entity information
For questions about businesses and places, Bing uses its own business data, including Bing Places listings, along with information from across the web. Consistent entity information helps Bing identify and describe your business correctly.
| Tool or signal | What it does | Why it matters for Copilot |
|---|---|---|
| Bing Webmaster Tools | Verification, indexing reports, sitemaps, crawl diagnostics, site scan | Confirms Bing can find and index your content |
| IndexNow | Notifies participating search engines when URLs are added or updated | Helps Bing discover new and updated content faster |
| Bing Places for Business | Manages local business listings in Bing and Microsoft Maps | Supports accurate local answers and recommendations |
| Structured data | Describes entities and content explicitly | Helps Bing understand your business and pages |
| Bingbot access | Crawler reaches your pages | Required for indexing and retrieval |
Copilot Visibility Strategy: Step by Step
Step 1: Verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools
Create a Bing Webmaster Tools account and verify your site. If you already use Google Search Console, Bing allows you to import verified sites from it, which makes setup quick. Submit your XML sitemaps.
Step 2: Review indexing and crawl reports
Check how many pages Bing has indexed and whether important pages are missing. Review crawl errors, blocked URLs, and the site scan report, which highlights SEO issues from Bing’s perspective. Bing sometimes indexes sites differently from Google, so do not assume that good Google coverage means good Bing coverage.
Step 3: Implement IndexNow
IndexNow is an open protocol that lets you notify participating search engines, including Bing, whenever you publish, update, or delete content. Many content management systems, SEO plugins, and CDNs support it with little setup. It helps Bing discover changes faster, which matters for AI answers that rely on current information. Google does not currently use IndexNow, so it complements rather than replaces your Google setup.
Step 4: Check Bingbot access
Confirm that robots.txt, firewalls, CDN bot protection, and security plugins allow Bingbot. Review server logs to confirm it receives successful responses. My guide to AI crawlers and robots.txt explains how to review crawler access.
Step 5: Claim and complete Bing Places
For businesses with a physical location or service area, claim your Bing Places listing. You can import information from Google Business Profile, then review it for accuracy. Complete categories, hours, photos, services, and contact details, and keep them consistent with your other listings. My local SEO guide covers the principles.
Step 6: Strengthen entity and structured data
State clearly on your website who you are and what you do, and use Organization or LocalBusiness structured data with sameAs links to official profiles. My schema markup guide explains implementation, and my guide to entity SEO explains why consistency matters.
Step 7: Publish clear, specific answers
Build pages that answer the questions your buyers ask, with descriptive headings, direct opening answers, and structured formats such as lists and tables. Bing, like Google, rewards content that is relevant, useful, and trustworthy.
Step 8: Test and monitor
Ask Copilot the questions your customers ask, record whether you are cited or mentioned, and note which sources appear. Monitor Bing Webmaster Tools performance reports for impressions and clicks, and look for any AI related reporting Microsoft provides, which has been expanding.
Bing SEO Differences Worth Knowing
Bing and Google share most fundamentals, but there are differences that affect priorities.
- Explicit signals matter. Bing has historically placed clear weight on on-page signals such as descriptive titles and headings that match the query.
- Social and brand signals. Bing has said it considers social signals, so an active, consistent brand presence can help.
- Freshness and IndexNow. Bing encourages IndexNow for timely discovery of new and updated content.
- Different indexing coverage. Bing may index fewer pages of a site than Google, particularly for newer or smaller sites. Monitoring indexing directly is important.
- Webmaster guidelines. Bing publishes its own guidelines, which emphasize quality content, clear site structure, and avoiding manipulative tactics.
Microsoft 365 Copilot and B2B Visibility
In workplace settings, Microsoft 365 Copilot helps employees research topics and draft documents, and it can use web content when organizations enable web grounding. When a procurement manager asks Copilot inside Teams or Word for an overview of suppliers in a category, public web content retrieved through Bing may inform the answer. For B2B companies, that makes clear capability pages, specifications, case studies, and consistent company information valuable in yet another setting.
What People Ask Copilot
Knowing how people use Copilot helps you decide which content matters most.
Work research
Professionals ask Copilot to explain concepts, summarize regulations, outline processes, and compare tools while they work. Clear explainers, standards summaries, and practical how to content from credible sources are well suited to these questions.
Supplier and vendor discovery
Buyers ask for lists of providers, comparisons of solutions, and evaluation criteria. Capability pages, honest comparisons, and case studies help your business be considered, especially when combined with credible third party coverage.
Everyday questions in Windows and Edge
Because Copilot is built into Windows and Edge, people ask it quick questions about products, services, and local businesses throughout the day. Accurate listings and concise, direct answers matter here.
Drafting and summarizing
Many Copilot sessions involve drafting emails or documents. When those tasks need facts from the web, Copilot retrieves them through Bing, so authoritative, clearly stated information can end up informing the content people write.
A 30 Day Bing and Copilot Plan
For businesses starting from scratch, a simple plan covers the essentials in about a month.
Week one: verify the site in Bing Webmaster Tools, import settings from Google Search Console if available, submit sitemaps, and review indexing coverage and crawl errors. Check robots.txt and security settings for anything that might block Bingbot.
Week two: enable IndexNow through your CMS, SEO plugin, or CDN. Claim or update your Bing Places listing and make sure your business details match your website and other listings exactly. Add or fix Organization and LocalBusiness structured data.
Week three: identify the ten to twenty questions your buyers most often ask and test them in Copilot. Record which sources are cited. Prioritize three to five pages to improve with clearer headings, direct answers, and structured comparisons.
Week four: publish the improvements, submit the updated URLs through IndexNow, and set a monthly reminder to review Bing indexing, Copilot answers, and referral traffic. After that, treat Bing as a standard part of your SEO routine rather than an afterthought.
Content That Performs Well
The pages most likely to be retrieved and cited in Copilot tend to share a few qualities. They have descriptive titles and headings that closely match how people phrase questions. They open sections with direct, specific answers. They present processes as numbered steps and comparisons as tables. They come from sources with a clear identity and visible expertise. And they are current, with dates showing when they were last reviewed. None of this is unique to Copilot, which is the point: well structured, trustworthy content performs across every AI platform.
Measuring Copilot Visibility
- Bing indexing coverage: the proportion of important pages indexed in Bing.
- Bing search performance: impressions, clicks, and positions in Bing Webmaster Tools.
- Copilot testing: mentions, citations, and description accuracy across a consistent prompt set.
- Referral traffic: visits from bing.com and copilot.microsoft.com in analytics.
- Bing Places performance: actions such as calls and direction requests where reported.
Copilot for Local Businesses and Online Stores
Local businesses often assume Copilot is only relevant to office workers, but people use it on Windows laptops and in Edge to find nearby services, check opening hours, and compare local options. Bing Places listings, consistent business details, and reviews shape those answers. A complete Bing Places profile with accurate categories, hours, photos, and services takes little time and closes a gap many local competitors leave open.
Online stores benefit from making product information explicit and consistent. Bing offers merchant tools for product listings, and clear product pages with specifications, prices, and availability in text help both Bing’s shopping features and Copilot answers about products. Keep product data accurate, because outdated prices or stock information can be repeated in AI answers.
Common Mistakes
- Never verifying Bing Webmaster Tools. Without it, you cannot see how Bing indexes your site.
- Assuming Google coverage equals Bing coverage. Bing may index your site differently.
- Ignoring Bing Places. Local businesses miss recommendations in Microsoft’s ecosystem.
- Blocking Bingbot through security settings. Firewalls and bot protection can block it unintentionally.
- Skipping IndexNow. A simple integration that speeds up discovery is often overlooked.
- Inconsistent business information. Conflicting details across listings weaken entity understanding.
Best Practices
- Verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools and submit sitemaps.
- Monitor Bing indexing and fix gaps.
- Implement IndexNow through your CMS, plugin, or CDN.
- Allow Bingbot and verify access in server logs.
- Claim and complete Bing Places.
- Keep entity information consistent everywhere.
- Publish clear, specific, well structured answers.
- Test Copilot regularly with a consistent prompt set.
Practical Example: A Cybersecurity Consultancy
Consider a cybersecurity consultancy that sells mainly to mid sized companies, many of which use Microsoft 365. This is an illustrative scenario. The consultancy performed reasonably well in Google, but when its team asked Copilot questions such as “how to prepare for a cybersecurity audit” or “what does a penetration test include,” the answers cited other firms and publications.
A review would reveal that the consultancy had never verified its site in Bing Webmaster Tools. Once verified, the indexing report would show that Bing had indexed only a fraction of its pages, and several key service pages were missing. The site’s security plugin was also rate limiting unfamiliar bots, which included Bingbot during busy periods.
The fixes would include adjusting the security plugin to allow Bingbot properly, submitting sitemaps, enabling IndexNow through the SEO plugin, and requesting indexing for priority pages. The consultancy would also claim its Bing Places listing, add Organization structured data, and restructure its service pages so each opened with a clear description of what the service includes, followed by numbered process steps and answers to common buyer questions.
Within weeks, Bing indexing coverage would improve, and over the following months the consultancy would expect to appear more often in Copilot answers for questions it covers well. The same improvements also support its broader generative engine optimization work and complement the steps in my guide on getting your brand mentioned in ChatGPT.
Copilot and Bing Visibility Checklist
- Site verified in Bing Webmaster Tools.
- XML sitemaps submitted to Bing.
- Bing indexing coverage reviewed and gaps addressed.
- IndexNow implemented.
- Bingbot allowed in robots.txt, firewall, CDN, and plugins.
- Bing Places claimed and complete.
- Business information consistent across all listings.
- Organization or LocalBusiness structured data implemented.
- Priority pages provide clear, specific, structured answers.
- Copilot tested regularly with a consistent prompt set.
- Bing and Copilot referral traffic monitored.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Copilot use Google search results?
No. Copilot’s web grounding relies on Microsoft’s Bing search. That is why Bing visibility is the foundation of Copilot visibility.
Is Bing Webmaster Tools worth setting up if most of my traffic comes from Google?
Yes. It takes little time, especially if you import sites from Google Search Console, and it gives you visibility into how Bing, and by extension Copilot, sees your site.
What is IndexNow?
IndexNow is an open protocol that lets you notify participating search engines, including Bing, when content changes. It helps new and updated pages be discovered faster. Google does not currently use it.
Do local businesses need Bing Places?
Yes, if you want accurate local information in Bing, Microsoft Maps, and Copilot answers. You can import details from Google Business Profile to save time.
Can I see Copilot traffic in analytics?
Partly. Look for referrals from copilot.microsoft.com and bing.com. Some AI assisted visits may not carry clear referrer information, so treat figures as a minimum.
How long does it take to appear in Copilot answers?
Once Bing indexes your pages, improvements can begin to influence Copilot within weeks. IndexNow can speed up discovery of new and updated pages. Building broader reputation and entity recognition takes longer, typically several months.
Does Microsoft 365 Copilot use my website?
When organizations enable web grounding, Microsoft 365 Copilot can use web results from Bing. That means well indexed, clear public content can inform answers in workplace settings too.
Conclusion
Copilot brings AI answers into Windows, Edge, and Microsoft 365, and it relies on Bing to find current information. For many businesses, the biggest opportunity is simply to stop ignoring Bing: verify your site, check indexing, implement IndexNow, allow Bingbot, claim Bing Places, and keep your entity information consistent. Combine that with clear, well structured answers to the questions your buyers ask, and you give Copilot what it needs to cite you.
Because so few competitors invest in Bing, the effort required is modest compared with the potential advantage, particularly for B2B companies whose buyers live inside Microsoft’s tools every day. A technical SEO audit that includes Bing is a sensible first step.
Want to Be Found in Copilot?
If your business is invisible in Bing and Copilot, I can review your Bing indexing, crawler access, listings, and content, and set up the tools and fixes that give you a fair chance of being cited. Get in touch through DigitalKetan.com to discuss your AI visibility.