Bing adds AI Visibility Insights as brands scramble to track AI search
- Jul 21
- 2 min read
Updated: 3 hours ago
Microsoft has added a new feature called AI Visibility Insights to Bing Webmaster Tools, giving website owners data on how their content appears within AI-powered search experiences. It is a small but telling development in a fast-emerging discipline: understanding, and influencing, how brands show up in AI-generated answers.
As search engines increasingly answer queries with AI summaries rather than lists of links, marketers have been left with a visibility problem. Traditional rank tracking tells you where a page sits in a list of results, but says little about whether — or how — a brand is being represented inside an AI answer. Bing's new insights are an early attempt to close that gap.
The rise of ‘AI SEO’
The launch reflects the emergence of what some are calling AI SEO or generative engine optimisation: the practice of optimising content not just to rank, but to be understood, trusted and cited by AI systems. As AI answers become the primary way many people get information, being the source those systems draw on is fast becoming as important as ranking ever was.
For now, the tools are rudimentary and the metrics immature. But the direction is clear. Just as marketers once built entire disciplines around understanding Google's ranking signals, a new set of practices is forming around AI visibility — and the platforms are beginning to provide the data to support it.
What UK brands should do
UK marketers should start paying attention to AI visibility now, even while the tools are basic. That means monitoring how brand content is represented in AI answers where possible, investing in the authority and structured, trustworthy content that AI systems favour, and building the internal habit of thinking about AI search as a distinct channel rather than an afterthought.
The brands that treat this shift seriously early — building the measurement and content foundations for AI search — will be far better placed than those that wait for the discipline to fully mature. In search, as so often, the advantage goes to those who adapt first.
AI visibility is where SEO was twenty years ago — messy, poorly measured, and full of opportunity. The brands that start learning how to be cited by AI now will own the advantage when the rest of the market catches up. — Daniel Nikolla, Founder of Merx Marketing
For marketers, AI search is a distinct new channel. Start measuring your AI visibility and building citable authority now, while the tools are still immature.
Do you know how your brand shows up in AI search results — or are you still only tracking traditional rankings?
If you would like to know more about this topic, please contact us on danieln@merxmarketing.co.uk
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