The ChatGPT connection
OpenAI’s documentation for ChatGPT Enterprise and Edu says search queries may be shared with Bing to retrieve web results. Its general search guidance also describes the use of search partners. These arrangements support considering Bing in an AI discovery plan; they do not establish that Bing supplies every answer or determines every business recommendation. [1]
For a marketing owner, the practical implication is to examine access and available evidence rather than assume that a small direct-referral number describes the whole opportunity.
A business can be discovered through an intermediary without receiving a simple, complete account of that influence in its website reporting.
Bing’s new report
On 13 October 2026, Bing announced Topics Portfolio in beta within its AI Performance reporting. It groups relevant grounding-query activity into themes and shows topic presence and opportunity queries where sufficient site data exists. Bing describes the measures as approximate and directional. [2]
The useful starting question is what those themes suggest about how the site is being understood. Do they reflect the services the business wants to be known for? Is important material absent or poorly represented?
That is a prompt for investigation, rather than a complete picture of demand across AI platforms.
The content gaps
Imagine a consultancy whose site has useful material on one narrow specialty but little explanation of its wider offer. A topic report may reinforce what its search activity already suggests: the public evidence supports an earlier version of the business.
Publishing a large set of articles immediately may miss the simpler problem. The company might first need clearer service pages, relevant proof and a more accurate description of the situations it serves.
Another business may find that the report is unavailable because there is too little data. That absence does not demonstrate that the business has no opportunity in AI discovery. It limits what this particular report can tell you.
Separate platform measures
Bing reporting is not a report of every ChatGPT recommendation. An appearance, a citation, a visit and a qualified inquiry are different observations.
Record what each source of evidence actually measures. Combine available reports with representative buyer questions, referral information and what prospects tell the team. Avoid turning one favorable answer into a claim of stable visibility.
The business also needs to consider its own information and accessibility. Can relevant systems retrieve important pages? Is the offer current? Does the site provide enough evidence to support an informed assessment? Those are questions worth investigating even before a reporting tool provides a complete picture.
A focused response
The conclusion does not need to be a wholesale shift in budget. It can be a focused review of a channel the business has historically ignored, informed by a documented connection and a new reporting capability.
Use that review to choose a small number of worthwhile improvements. Keep checking whether they help the intended audience discover and evaluate the business, rather than treating more citations as an end in themselves.
Superfactor can help examine Bing and AI search accessibility as part of a wider discovery strategy. Bring us the services you want customers to find and the evidence you currently use to judge visibility. We can help distinguish a useful next step from a new reporting distraction.
