What Do Bing’s AI Performance and ChatGPT Ads Mean for Search?

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In this episode of Found in AI, Cassie breaks down Bing’s new AI Performance dashboard inside Bing Webmaster Tools and OpenAI’s rollout of ads in ChatGPT — and explains why this week marks a maturity moment for AI search.

Cassie walks through what Bing’s citation metrics actually measure, how grounding queries differ from traditional Google Search Console data, and why these insights should be used to validate entity authority, not just track keywords. She also unpacks what ChatGPT’s new ad layer signals about monetization, visibility, and the emerging “AI SERP” environment.

Using the Freshness, Structure, Authority (FSA) framework, Cassie explains how brands should approach measurable AI visibility and what changes are now required as AI interfaces include both organic citations and sponsored placements.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• What Bing’s AI Performance dashboard actually measures (and what it doesn’t)
• How grounding queries differ from Google Search Console query data
• Why you should use Bing to validate entity authority and GSC to guide keyword targeting
• How Freshness, Structure, and Authority show up in Bing’s recommendations
• What ChatGPT’s ad rollout means for organic AI visibility
• Why AI engines are starting to resemble conversational SERPs
• How brands should think about organic and paid visibility in AI interfaces

If you’re a marketer, founder, or content strategist trying to understand how AI visibility is evolving — and what measurement plus monetization means for your strategy — this episode will help you connect the dots between tooling, infrastructure, and opportunity.

Let's connect:

LinkedIn → Cassie Clark | Content Strategist
Website → cassieclarkmarketing.com

P.S. Is your brand losing its "Answer Authority"?

Most series A/B and enterprise brands are being "nudged" out of AI search results because of entity gaps and "stale" content. I am opening 3 specialized audit slots for February 2026 to help you reclaim your Share of Voice using the FSA Framework (Freshness, Structure, Authority).

Request your 7-Day AI Search Visibility Audit: https://cassieclarkmarketing.com/ai-search-visibility-audit/

Transcript

0:16

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Heyo, welcome back to Found in AI. I'm Cassie Clark, an AI search optimization expert, fractional content strategist, and the host of the show where we talk about AI search optimization, GEO, and AEO strategies, and what all this means so we don't get lost in this new wave of user search behavior. Today is Thursday, February 12th, and we have some actually really big updates this week. If you've been hanging around LinkedIn or YouTube or Reddit or anywhere people are talking about AI search or ChatGPT, you already know what we're about to dig into. First, ChatGPT officially launched as within the chat interface this week, and then being released a new feature inside Bing Webmaster Tools called AI Performance. So in the same week, we got both measurement and monetization. Generative search has still felt theoretical, experimental, or maybe even just SEO with a different name. Well, this week kind of makes clear that something bigger is happening. So let's talk about what these updates from OpenAI and Microsoft actually mean for our strategies. Okay, let's start with Bing's Webmaster Tools and their AI performance feature because honestly this is the one that I'm the most excited about. ChatGPT ads are important, and we'll get there, but this is the first major search engine really saying, hey, AI visibility is a thing, and we're going to show you how it works. We've seen hints of this before. Back in January, Bing released their AEO-GEO e-commerce guide, which I covered in last week's Thursday episode, but this tool and their new feature is a little bit different. This is them saying, hey, here it is, and we're tracking it for you. You're welcome. The AI performance feature lets publishers see total citations and AI answers, which URLs are being cited, average cited pages per day, grounding queries. We'll talk about more of that in a minute, and citation trends over time. Yeah, there are third-party AI visibility tools out there. Many of them are really great, but this is Bing's native reporting features. This is kind of their version of Google Search Console, but for AI answers, and I know some people might be thinking, does Bing really even matter? Listen, I get it. This is a fair question. Google has dominated traditional search for a long time. There's no denying that, but with this new feature for AI performance, this signals that it's not just about Bing's market share, but it's the fact that a major player is building infrastructure around AI-driven visibility, and they're moving quickly. Let's break down what this dashboard actually includes, because I think it's fascinating, but again, I'm a total nerd. We all know this already. First, we have total citations. This shows how often your content appears as a cited source in AI-generated answers. It doesn't tell you placement or prominence, just frequency, and that matters because if your content keeps getting cited, that's a sign that the engine is repeatedly retrieving and trusting your brand. Next is average cited pages. This shows how many unique pages from your site are being cited per day, and this is where things kind of get a little bit interesting, because if only one or two pages are being cited repeatedly, well, that tells you something about how your authority is concentrated. If many pages across your site are being cited, that suggests broader entity authority, and this connects directly to the FSA framework, which is Freshness, Structure, and Authority, because if your structure and authority are strong across multiple pages, you can expect that citation distribution to widen over time. Then we have those grounding queries. This might be the most useful metric in the entire dashboard, I think. Grounding queries show the phrases that AI used when retrieving your content. It's similar to how Google Search Console shows you keywords, but this is a little more layered. It's not really just about the words, but it's how the model is categorizing you. Now, yes, you can see query data in Google Search Console too, and at a first glance, this might look the same, but I'm going to use them differently. I'm going to let Bing's grounding queries validate my entity authority, or how the model recognizes my brand and what themes I'm constantly associated with. Then I'm going to take Google Search Console to guide keyword targeting and content optimization. One shows you how AI understands you. The other helps you decide what to create next. Now, when you put them together, this is much more powerful than either one of them separately. This is not choosing one over the other. It's about using each platform for a signal that it's actually designed to give you. So Google Search Console currently is traditional search. Bing's AI performance is performance within their AI engines. Now, we know from testing and experimenting that how you optimize your content for one engine kind of translates to the next one. Sure, there are some differences, but for now, those strategies are pretty much the same. So if we have that data for Bing, then we have that data for all of them. Sort of. Sort of. The next thing that they give us is page-level citation activity, and this shows which specific URLs are being cited most often. This is where Bing's blog gets especially practical because they have a whole guide on what to do with this information. They explicitly say you should use these insights to validate which pages are already being referenced, identify content that appears frequently, and then improve your clarity and structure on pages that are indexed but less frequently cited. Let's talk about what all of this means through the lens of the FSA framework. So Bing mentions or Microsoft mentions on the Bing blog that pages cited for specific grounding queries often reflect clear subject focus and domain expertise. So in other words, if a page is being cited, it demonstrates that you have authority. So what do you do with that? Well, expand around it. Deepen those adjacent subtopics, reinforce your entity relationships, and then when that happens, your authority compounds. So a lot of what this references is what happens on your website, but it shouldn't just stay on your website because through testing AEO and GEO strategies, we know that a lot of what happens and what influences those answers happens off-site. So spreading that expertise across channels like YouTube, Reddit, LinkedIn, third-party websites, and using digital PR partnerships and then those third-party mentions elsewhere, like your review sites, those reinforce those authority signals. So it's not just about one-page ranking, but it's how your expertise travels across the whole internet as to what really influences AI search answer influence. That brain fog is hitting again. So Bing in their blog also call out improving structure and clarity. So it's those clear headings and tables and FAQ sections. This is not really just formatting advice, although I guess we can take it that way, but it is kind of Microsoft saying that that structured content is easier for those AI engines to retrieve and reference accurately. Structure is machine legibility. That's the S in the FSA framework. They also recommend adding examples, data, and cited sources, which helps build trust. AI engines are more likely to pull content that makes supported claims. So authority is not just the tone and how you write it, it's also the evidence. And then there's freshness. They talk about regular updates, current information, and index now. Freshness has always mattered, but in AI-driven retrieval systems, update velocity becomes even more important. If a system is retrieving from index content pools and yours is the most up-to-date, then that gives you an advantage, and that's the F in the FSA framework. From where I'm sitting, a lot of what Bing is recommending maps very clearly to the FSA framework. So if you apply that to your content strategy, I mean, you kind of have an advantage there. So what this tool, the AI performance feature, really changes is behavior. Before AI visibility kind of felt like publish, prompt test, guess, hope, publish again, test again. And now it's publish, monitor those citation patterns, refine your structure, deepen your authority, and update consistently. We have a feedback loop now. And when feedback loops exist, those ecosystems mature much quicker. Now let's talk about the other big update, chat GPT ads. OpenAI rolled out ads to logged in adult users on the free and go tiers. Plus pro, business, enterprise, and education tiers remain free, ad free. And in their announcement, they emphasize that ads do not influence answers, they are clearly labeled, and advertisers do not see your chat, and sensitive topics are excluded. The through line here that they're trying to portray is trust. Answer independence is non-negotiable. So what's new that we've learned is that ads are now matched to the topic of your conversation, your past chats, and past ad interactions. So this is kind of contextual conversational advertising. Not like traditional search ads, it's intent layer advertising inside a reasoning interface. That's a little bit different than what we're used to. So in the same week, two things have happened. AI visibility becomes measurable, and AI interfaces are officially monetized. That means these AI engines now have organic citation surfaces and sponsored surfaces. It looks a little like traditional search engine results page, just in conversational form. However we define it, search engine or answer engine, people are using these platforms to find information and make decisions. So for brands, this means those organic citations is driven by freshness, structure, and authority. Paid placement is driven by relevance and budget. These are two separate systems, two separate strategies, but they occupy within the same screen. It just means that visibility now is more layered. So this week feels like a maturity moment inside AI search optimization. Bing is out there building the GEO tooling, OpenAI is formalizing monetization inside these AI interfaces, and that means that the infrastructure is solidifying. And when infrastructure solidifies, behavior usually follows. So if you've been experimenting with FSA principles, this kind of gives you more guidance into what's working. If you're just starting to explore AI visibility more seriously, this is really a good moment to dig in, learn as much as you can, and experiment with it before it becomes saturated. Because this week has really made one thing clear, AI search is not experimental anymore. It's now measurable, it's monetized, and it's accelerating. Hey I'm Cassie Clark. If you're interested in running an AI search visibility audit before making any changes to your current strategy, you can find more information in the show notes or at CassieClarkMarketing.com. Okay, that's it for this week. I will see you on Tuesday. Until then, stay visible.