What is Microsoft Copilot?

Copilot is a brand Microsoft puts on many products: the assistant for the general public, the Microsoft 365 one for work, GitHub Copilot for coding, Copilot Studio for building agents. For a store, the first one counts, along with its version inside the Bing search engine, which answer with information from the web. It matters to a store because Copilot is another answer engine with its own index, its own measurement tool and, since 2026, its own checkout, and none of that is visible from Google.

How it works

From Bing Chat to Copilot. The AI chat Microsoft added to Bing changed its name on November 15, 2023: Bing Chat, and its business version, were renamed Copilot.⁠^{[1]Microsoft, official blog (November 15, 2023). Microsoft Ignite 2023: AI transformation and the technology driving change} The origin explains where it reads from.

Bing's index. Microsoft says it plainly: experiences like Microsoft Copilot run on Bing's search index and serve billions of queries a month. And it describes how an answer gets built: assistants like Copilot break content into smaller, structured pieces, evaluate them for authority and relevance and assemble them into a single answer, often with several sources at once.⁠^{[2]Microsoft Advertising, blog (Krishna Madhavan, Microsoft Bing, October 8, 2025). Optimizing Your Content for Inclusion in AI Search Answers} For your store, that means every fragment of a product page counts, not just the page as a whole.

Copilot Search. On April 4, 2025, Microsoft introduced Copilot Search in Bing, which blends classic and generative search on the same page. According to Microsoft, it cites its sources prominently and links the exact sentence or passage of the answer to the source it comes from, and it keeps the usual web results at hand.⁠^{[3]Microsoft, Bing Search blog (April 4, 2025). Introducing Copilot Search in Bing}

Measurement. Since February 10, 2026, Bing Webmaster Tools has had a report in public preview, AI Performance, with four data points: the total number of times your pages are cited as a source in AI-generated answers, the average number of distinct pages from your site cited per day, the grounding queries (the phrases the AI used to retrieve the content it ended up citing) and the citations for each URL. It covers Copilot, AI-generated summaries within Bing and some partner integrations.⁠^{[4]Microsoft, Webmaster Tools blog. Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools Public Preview}

Buying. On January 8, 2026, Microsoft introduced Copilot Checkout: the shopper pays inside the conversation, without being redirected to the store's site, and the store remains the merchant of record for the sale, owner of the transaction, the customer data and the relationship. It started in the United States, on Copilot.com, with PayPal, Shopify and Stripe. PayPal and Stripe stores apply for it; Shopify stores are enrolled automatically when an opt-out period ends. Microsoft adds that Microsoft Merchant Center product feeds help inform Copilot's organic results, although they are not required for Copilot Checkout.⁠^{[5]Microsoft Advertising, blog (January 8, 2026). Conversations that Convert: Copilot Checkout and Brand Agents} It is Microsoft's version of agentic checkout.

In a store

Microsoft publishes its own recommendations for getting content into AI search answers, and some of them go straight to the product page. Here is how they would look applied to a dishwasher page, in a fictional example that starts from the example Microsoft itself gives:

The first row explains the rest: nobody can cite "quiet," and "42 dB" can be cited, compared and checked. A piece that makes sense on its own is a piece that can be used, and that is what a system that breaks content into fragments looks for.

How to check it

1. Verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools and open AI Performance. See how many times you are cited and which pages.⁠^{[4]Microsoft, Webmaster Tools blog. Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools Public Preview}
2. Read the grounding queries. They are the phrases the AI used to reach your content: they tell you what questions it considers you a source for.⁠^{[4]Microsoft, Webmaster Tools blog. Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools Public Preview}
3. Ask Copilot what your shopper would ask and open the links in the answer to see which sources it cites for each sentence.⁠^{[3]Microsoft, Bing Search blog (April 4, 2025). Introducing Copilot Search in Bing} Repeat on another day: one answer is a sample of one.
4. Go over your product pages with Microsoft's guide: concrete descriptions, questions and answers, comparison tables and JSON-LD markup.⁠^{[2]Microsoft Advertising, blog (Krishna Madhavan, Microsoft Bing, October 8, 2025). Optimizing Your Content for Inclusion in AI Search Answers}
5. If you sell on Shopify in the United States, check your status in Copilot Checkout: enrollment is automatic when the opt-out period ends.⁠^{[5]Microsoft Advertising, blog (January 8, 2026). Conversations that Convert: Copilot Checkout and Brand Agents}

Related concept: Gemini

Gemini is the same thing seen from Google: an assistant and, at the same time, the model that writes the search engine's AI answers. The difference that matters to a store is in where they read from and where it is measured. Copilot reads from Bing's index and its citations are counted in Bing Webmaster Tools;⁠^{[2]Microsoft Advertising, blog (Krishna Madhavan, Microsoft Bing, October 8, 2025). Optimizing Your Content for Inclusion in AI Search Answers}⁠^{[4]Microsoft, Webmaster Tools blog. Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools Public Preview} Google's AI features are measured in Search Console, which gives impressions in AI Overviews and in AI Mode.⁠^{[6]Search Console Help. Generative AI performance report (Search)} Two search engines, two indexes, two dashboards: a store that looks at only one sees half.

To go further, the AI search reading path orders the rest of the terms, and the entry on Bing Webmaster Tools explains how to register your site and what else it measures.