Bing Shows the Grounding Query. Google's AI Report Still Does Not
Bing AI Performance lists citations and the phrases used to retrieve them. Search Console's AI report stays on impressions.
Direct answer
Bing Webmaster Tools reports total citations, page-level citations, and a sample of grounding queries for Copilot and Bing AI summaries. Google's generative AI report, worldwide since 31 August 2026, still shows impressions without queries or a separate citation count.
The two webmaster reports for AI answers do not measure the same thing. Bing's AI Performance dashboard, introduced on 10 February 2026, counts citations: how often URLs from a verified site were shown as sources in Microsoft Copilot, Bing's AI summaries, and selected partner integrations. It also lists page-level citation counts and a sample of the phrases the system used when it retrieved those pages. Bing calls those phrases grounding queries.
A June 2026 comparison with Google, updated after Search Console's generative AI report reached every property on 31 August 2026, draws the gap this way. Google's dedicated report is impressions only. It has no separate citation metric and no grounding-query list. The Search Console API does not expose that report. Bing still has no AI click count either. Microsoft has said clicks are coming. They are not in the dashboard described here.
What a citation count leaves out
Bing's own description says a citation total does not indicate where the link sat inside the answer, or how it was presented. Page counts are how often a URL was referenced, not a rank. The grounding-query list is a sample, not the full log.
For GEO measurement, Bing is the report that names the retrieval phrase. Google is the report that counts how often the URL was shown. Neither one is traffic.
Source: SEO Kreativ, Bing Webmaster Tools.
FAQ
- Which Microsoft surfaces are included?
- AI summaries in Bing, Microsoft Copilot, and selected partner integrations.
- Do either of the reports show AI clicks?
- The comparison says Bing has announced click data but does not show it yet, and Google's generative AI report does not include clicks.