Get found by Microsoft Copilot
Microsoft Copilot sits inside the tools your buyers already use at work, and when it needs the web it asks Bing. That makes Bing visibility the entry point for B2B research that happens inside Microsoft's software.
What the data says
How people use Microsoft Copilot to search in 2026
Copilot shows up in two places. At work, Microsoft Copilot (the product formerly called Microsoft 365 Copilot) runs inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams and the Copilot Chat app, with more than 30 million paid seats as of July 2026. Microsoft's own documentation gives a typical B2B example: a user asks Copilot to summarize a company's financials and strategy, and Copilot returns one section built from the company's internal data and another labeled "From the web." Researcher, Analyst and Cowork can also draw on the web when it is enabled.
For consumers, Copilot spans chat, search, news, browsing in Edge, shopping and Windows. Microsoft said daily users of the Copilot app nearly tripled year over year by January 2026, and Copilot Checkout lets people buy inside the app through PayPal, Shopify and Stripe. For B2B brands, the work side is what matters most: the research is happening inside the buyer's own software, often while they are drafting the memo, deck or email that starts a purchase.
How Microsoft Copilot finds and cites sources
According to Microsoft Learn, when web search is enabled, Copilot reads the prompt, identifies terms where web information would improve the answer, and generates a short search query that it sends to the Bing search service. The query is a few words, not the whole prompt, and it carries no user or tenant identifiers. Copilot then uses what Bing returns to compose its response. In Copilot Chat, a linked citation section shows the exact queries sent to Bing, and admins control whether web search is on for their organization.
Because Bing supplies the web results, Bing visibility comes first. Since February 2026, Bing Webmaster Tools has offered an AI Performance report showing how often your pages are cited in Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing and select partner integrations, along with the grounding queries that led to each citation. A June 2026 update added intents, topics, and citation share, meaning your percentage of all citations for a given grounding query. Microsoft's guidance for site owners is to build depth and clarity, back claims with evidence, keep content fresh, and use IndexNow so AI answers reference the current version of a page.
How to earn visibility on Microsoft Copilot
Get your Bing foundation right
Verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools, submit sitemaps, fix crawl errors, and allow Bingbot. Copilot's web answers come from Bing, so pages Bing cannot index are not candidates.
Turn on IndexNow
Microsoft recommends IndexNow so search engines learn about changes quickly and AI answers cite the current version of a page. Wire it into your CMS for new and updated content.
Write for short grounding queries
Copilot sends Bing a few words, not the full prompt. Make sure your key pages clearly match the short terms a work query reduces to: your category, the problem, comparisons and pricing.
Publish what a business case needs
Copilot is often used while someone drafts a memo or deck. Pages with specific facts, specifications, pricing logic, implementation timelines and evidence are the ones it can use in that document.
Monitor AI Performance and citation share
Use the AI Performance report to see which pages Copilot cites, which grounding queries drive them, and where competitors hold more citation share. Prioritize the gaps.
Keep local and entity data accurate
Claim Bing Places for Business and keep your company details consistent across LinkedIn, directories and your own site so Copilot describes you correctly.
It is not just about traffic
Copilot matters for B2B because it puts web research inside the software where purchases get proposed and approved. Being one of the sources it cites when a buyer asks it to summarize a market or compare vendors puts you in the document that reaches the decision maker. AlchemyLeads is a revenue-first AI search agency: we fix the Bing foundation, build pages that answer the short queries Copilot sends, use the AI Performance report to track citation share, and connect AI-referred visits to leads and pipeline in your CRM. For one industrial ground-monitoring manufacturer, our work produced 4,500 AI citations across 18 pages in six months and 170% more requests for quote.
Straight answers
Where does Microsoft Copilot get its web answers?
From Bing. Microsoft's documentation says that when web search is enabled, Copilot generates a short query from the user's prompt, sends it to the Bing search service, and uses the results to ground its answer. That means a page Bing has not indexed, or does not consider relevant, is unlikely to be cited in Copilot's web answers.
Can we see when Copilot cites our website?
Yes. Bing Webmaster Tools added an AI Performance report in public preview in February 2026. It shows total citations, cited pages and the grounding queries behind them across Microsoft Copilot, Bing's AI summaries and select partners. A June 2026 update added intents, topics and citation share, so you can compare your share of citations for a query.
Does Copilot at work use the public web?
It can. Web search is optional and admins decide whether it is enabled for the organization; users can also turn it off. When it is on, Copilot can combine a company's internal data with web results, and Microsoft's own example shows a response split into a section from company data and a section labeled "From the web."
How many people use Microsoft Copilot?
Microsoft reported more than 30 million paid Microsoft 365 Copilot seats in July 2026 and said daily users of the consumer Copilot app nearly tripled year over year as of January 2026. Bing, which supplies Copilot's web results, reached 1 billion monthly active users in April 2026. Microsoft has not published a single 2026 user total for all Copilot products.
Is optimizing for Copilot different from Bing SEO?
It starts with Bing SEO, because Bing supplies the results. The difference is in the details: Copilot sends short derived queries rather than the full prompt, quotes specific passages, and is often used for work documents. Pages need clear, factual answers that match those short queries, and success is measured in citations and pipeline rather than positions.
Sources
- Microsoft FY26 Q4 earnings conference call, Jul 2026
- Microsoft FY26 Q3 earnings conference call, Apr 2026
- Microsoft FY26 Q2 earnings conference call, Jan 2026
- Microsoft Learn: Data, privacy, and security for web search in Microsoft Copilot, Aug 2026
- Bing Webmaster Blog: Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools, Feb 2026
- Bing Search Blog: New AI visibility insights in Bing Webmaster Tools, Jun 2026
Show up where your buyers actually search
We map where your buyers research, then build the visibility that turns those moments into qualified pipeline.
