Bing has crossed one billion monthly active users, a milestone that underscores its growing role in how people navigate the web today.
But what makes this moment significant isn’t the scale alone – it’s what that growth tells us about how search is evolving in an AI-driven world.
AI is fundamentally reshaping how people discover, evaluate, and decide. More of the early journey – filtering options, comparing products, narrowing choices – is now happening before a user ever types a query.
As a result, the intent that reaches search is more defined from the outset – sharper, more contextual, and closer to action.
For advertisers, that shift has real implications.
Microsoft Advertising data shows that three and four-word queries leading to clicks on AI-generated answers have grown significantly year over year (Source: Microsoft Internal Data. Global Search Network Only O&O. Q4 2024 – Q4 2025), while single-word queries have declined by 6% (Source: Microsoft Internal Data. Global Search Network Only O&O. Jan 2025 – Jan 2026).
That pattern reflects a consumer who has already done some of the thinking and is now arriving in search ready to narrow down, compare, and decide.
This is supported by broader research. An IAB and Talk Shoppe study found that 80% of shoppers are now using AI to research and compare products, with usage highest in the early and middle stages of the shopping journey.
As AI absorbs more of the early discovery process, search is becoming the place where decisions happen.
To support this shift, Microsoft Advertising is introducing AI Max, now in open pilot. AI Max uses AI to expand query matching, personalise creative, and optimise landing experiences – helping brands show up more effectively as consumer intent becomes more nuanced across surfaces such as Bing and Copilot.
Importantly, advertisers remain in control – opting into AI Max and setting guardrails such as brand parameters, exclusions, and messaging constraints, with full transparency into how queries and assets are performing.
At the same time, new formats such as Offer Highlights bring relevance directly into the AI-powered experience. These formats surface key product differentiators such as free shipping or in-store pick-up, within the context of a Copilot conversation, aligning brand messaging with what matters most in the moment.
This approach connects relevance with immediacy, helping brands show up with clarity and impact when users are ready to act.
Search anchors high-intent behaviour
As the journey evolves, search continues to concentrate on high-value intent.
ComScore data shows that search usage continues to grow globally, with total minutes spent far exceeding time on generative AI platforms alone. For marketers, this reframes the role of search as a central layer in both research and decision-making.
GWI data cited by Microsoft Advertising shows that search engines reach 13% more users than social networks and 116% more than video platforms for product research globally.
In Southeast Asia, the dynamic between search and social is more nuanced. In Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, search reaches 2.4% to 18% more users than social networks for online product research and ranks as the second most-used channel in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. It also outperforms video platforms across all markets, reinforcing its role in high-intent validation. (Source: GWI, Q2 2024 – Q1 2025, Southeast Asia).
This illustrates that search is not solely one touchpoint among many, but a persistent decision infrastructure, a place where people validate what they’ve encountered elsewhere and determine what to do next.
From ranking to influence: How AI is changing visibility
To truly understand this shift, marketers need to look under the hood of how search itself now works.
Behind every AI-generated answer is a layer Microsoft refers to as grounding – the mechanism that connects AI to real-time, authoritative web content, ensuring responses are based on current and verifiable sources rather than model memory alone.
As AI increasingly mediates how consumers interact with information, grounding determines which content is retrieved, which sources are prioritised, and, ultimately, what shapes the answer a user sees.
In an AI-first environment, visibility is no longer defined only by rankings or clicks, but by how content contributes to answers, citations, and outcomes.
The AI visibility evolution is now becoming measurable. Earlier this year, Microsoft introduced AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools, a view into how content appears across AI-generated experiences, including Copilot and AI summaries in Bing. It shows how often content is cited, which pages are referenced, and the “grounding queries” that triggered those citations, the internal phrases AI systems use to match user intent to content.
For advertisers, this opens a new lens on performance: not just whether users clicked, but whether your content was selected, trusted, and used to shape the response.
This is a meaningful shift: from being found to being trusted.
As AI continues to reshape the path to purchase, search is playing an expanding role in how decisions are made. AI shapes how intent is formed. Search captures that intent and converts it into action.
For marketers, this creates an opportunity to engage across two critical dimensions: optimising for human decision-making and the AI systems that increasingly guide it.
To learn more about the evolution of search in advertising, and what it requires from marketers, download Microsoft Advertising’s practical guide to navigating the AI search landscape.
Five things you didn’t know about Bing
1. It has just joined the billion club: Bing has crossed one billion monthly active users and has grown more in the past five years than the previous 10 combined.
2. It’s woven into everyday workflows: Through Windows, Edge, and Copilot, Bing surfaces across task-driven moments throughout the day often in contexts where intent is immediate and action-oriented.
3. Microsoft Rewards drives repeat search behaviour: Users earn points for searching, completing quizzes, and engaging across Microsoft products, creating habit loops that encourage consistent and recurring usage.
4. “Give with Bing” turns searches into donations: Through Microsoft Rewards, users can convert their points into charitable contributions meaning everyday search activity can directly support causes people care about.
5. The name itself is about the moment of resolution: “Bing” was chosen to evoke the instant you find an answer – a concept that feels increasingly aligned with how search is experienced today.
This article was produced in partnership with Microsoft Advertising APAC.
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