Bing

What Bing does

Bing is Microsoft's AI-powered web search engine, serving global consumers with web, image, video, news, map, and shopping search. Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Bellevue, WA, Bing operates as a wholly-owned product of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT). The platform has been progressively integrated with Microsoft's broader AI strategy through Bing Copilot, which delivers conversational, generative AI responses grounded in Bing's search index, and is embedded across Microsoft Edge, Windows, Microsoft 365, and the web. Supporting products include Visual Search, Image Creator and Video Creator for generative content, Bing Shopping with cashback rewards, and Bing Webmaster Tools with an AI Performance dashboard for tracking citations in AI-generated answers.

The underlying technology stack combines large language models, natural language processing, computer vision, and generative AI to produce conversational search results, visual recognition, and AI-generated images and videos. Bing's index and grounding layer serve as the data substrate for Microsoft Copilot, and the platform supports structured data (schema markup) and webmaster controls such as data-nosnippet for snippet and AI-answer visibility. Distribution is structurally embedded in Microsoft products — Edge defaults, Windows, Office 365, and Copilot — supplemented by direct access via bing.com and mobile apps.

Bing's revenue model is advertising-led: keyword auction-based search advertising is the primary stream, supplemented by shopping affiliate commissions through Bing Shopping. The consumer product is free; monetization is concentrated on advertisers using Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads). Bing does not disclose standalone revenue, and its financials roll into Microsoft's Search and news advertising segment. The search engine holds ~3% or less of the global search market, with negligible share concentration but durable reach through the Microsoft ecosystem.

Name

Bing

Legal name

Microsoft Corporation

Website

https://bing.com

Company type

Public

Founded year

2009

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1,001–5,000 employees

Short description

Bing is Microsoft's AI-powered search engine serving global consumers via web, image, video, and shopping search, with conversational AI through Copilot. It monetizes through search advertising and shopping affiliate revenue, distributed through Windows, Edge, and Microsoft 365.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Web Search Services

NAICS

Web Search Portals and All Other Information Services (519290), Web Search Portals and All Other Information Services (51929), Media Streaming Distribution Services, Social Networks, and Other Media Networks and Content Providers (516210)

SIC

Services-Advertising Agencies (7311)

akta.pro primary industry

Meta-Search & Search Aggregators (BPAMAAAC)

akta.pro secondary industries

Shoppable Video & Short-form Commerce Platforms (CRAFANAE), Topic/Interest-Based Content Discovery Apps (MPACAKAB)

Keywords

• Web search engine
• Search advertising platform
• Visual search technology
• AI image generation
• Conversational AI search

Headquarters

HQ city

Bellevue

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Search Advertising: Bing generates revenue primarily through advertising. Advertisers bid on keywords in auctions, with sponsored products and display ads appearing in search results and across Microsoft properties.
2. Shopping Affiliate: Bing Shopping features affiliate partnerships with retailers, offering cashback rewards and product recommendations with commission-based revenue sharing.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels6 records

Marketing channels3 records

Core offering

Bing is a web search engine that delivers text, image, video, news, map, and shopping results to consumers, augmented by AI-powered features including Bing Copilot (conversational AI assistant), Bing Image Creator (text-to-image generation), and Bing Video Creator (text-to-video generation). The platform also provides Bing Webmaster Tools for publishers and Bing Shopping with cashback rewards via affiliate partnerships with major retailers.

Product overview

Bing is Microsoft's search engine platform offering a unified product portfolio centered around web search functionality. The core offerings include Bing Search (web, image, video, news, and map search) with integrated AI capabilities through Bing Copilot. Supporting products include Visual Search and Image/Video Creator for AI-powered content generation, Bing Shopping for e-commerce with cashback rewards, and Bing Webmaster Tools for site owners to monitor AI citation performance. The platform operates across multiple interfaces including desktop web, mobile, and integrations with Microsoft 365 services.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Bing Search Core web search engine that returns text, image, video, news, map, and shopping results across the web for general consumers.
• Bing Copilot AI-powered conversational assistant that lets users ask natural language questions and receive generative AI answers grounded in web search results, with schema markup support added in 2025-03.
• Bing Images Dedicated image search service that lets users search, browse, and visually search images across the web.
• Bing Videos Dedicated video search service that lets users discover and watch videos aggregated from across the web.
• Bing Shopping E-commerce shopping platform featuring product deals, cashback offers, price comparisons, and product recommendations aggregated from major retailers through affiliate partnerships.
• Bing Webmaster Tools Free publisher and SEO portal that provides sitemap submission, crawl diagnostics, search performance reporting, schema markup support, and an AI Performance Dashboard (launched 2026-02) for webmasters optimizing Bing visibility.
• Bing Image Creator Generative AI tool that creates images from natural language text prompts, accessible via Bing's standalone image creation page.
• Bing Video Creator Generative AI tool that creates videos from natural language text prompts, accessible via Bing's standalone video creation page.

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability8 records

Feature7 records

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Emerging players

• Perplexity AI: Perplexity is an AI-native answer engine that delivers conversational, cited responses instead of traditional blue-link search results. It competes with Bing's Copilot for the emerging AI-search user and represents a meaningful emerging threat to Bing's positioning in generative search.
• Ecosia: Ecosia is a privacy-focused, environmentally-themed search engine that uses Bing's index as a fallback. It competes for consumer search queries with a values-driven positioning similar to some of Bing's privacy features and represents an emerging niche peer.
• Brave Search: Brave Search is an independent, privacy-focused search engine with its own web index. It competes for consumer search queries with a similar privacy-positioning to Bing's data-nosnippet controls and represents a credible emerging alternative in the same horizontal search category.
• You.com: You.com is an AI-first search platform offering conversational answers, app integrations, and personalization. It overlaps directly with Bing's Copilot in offering generative AI search experiences and competes for the same power-user segment seeking AI-augmented discovery.

Direct peers

• DuckDuckGo: DuckDuckGo is a privacy-focused search engine competing directly with Bing for consumer search queries. While smaller in share, it targets a similar horizontal consumer use case and uses its own crawl supplemented by Bing's API results, positioning it as an adjacent direct competitor in the same product category.
• Yahoo Search: Yahoo Search is a direct competitor offering web search powered partly by Bing's index (Microsoft Bing powers Yahoo's search results). It competes for the same consumer search audience and advertising budgets, with similar horizontal portal-style product surface including news, mail, and shopping.
• Google Search: Google Search is the dominant global search engine with ~85%+ market share. It is the most direct competitor to Bing, offering identical core functionality (web search, images, video, news, maps, shopping) plus generative AI features via AI Overviews, and monetizes through the same keyword auction advertising model.

Regional players

• Yandex: Yandex is the leading search engine in Russia with comparable product offerings including web search, maps, images, shopping, and an AI assistant (Alice). It is comparable as a full-search-ecosystem peer but operates primarily in a different geographic market than Bing.
• Naver: Naver is the leading search and content platform in South Korea, offering web search, shopping, blogs, maps, and AI services. It is comparable in offering a horizontal search-and-content ecosystem but is primarily a regional player with limited overlap in Bing's core geographies.
• Baidu: Baidu is the dominant search engine in China, offering web search, maps, images, AI-powered results, and Baidu AI Cloud services. It is directly comparable in product scope and AI-driven search strategy but operates in a geographically distinct market from Bing.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/the-national-groups

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Bing