Bing's New AI Grounding Controls: What to Set Before March 2027

On 30 October 2026 Microsoft announced separate AI Training and AI Grounding preferences for Bing and Copilot, and said it will stop reading NoArchive and NoCache as AI-use signals after 1 March 2027. Microsoft starts honoring the new preferences on 1 February 2027, and a temporary grounding setting opens in Bing Webmaster Tools on 15 December 2026. Only sites that use NoArchive or NoCache need to act. Current as of 13 November 2026.

Key Takeaways

• Krishna Madhavan, a Principal Product Manager at Bing, announced "newer, simpler, and clearer" AI controls on 30 October 2026, per Search Engine Roundtable. Training and grounding are now two independent choices.
• Key dates: 15 December 2026 (temporary grounding controls open), 1 February 2027 (Microsoft honors the new preferences), 1 March 2027 (NoArchive and NoCache stop counting), 30 September 2027 (temporary grounding preferences expire).
• Microsoft warns that restricting grounding can reduce visibility in AI experiences, and says none of the controls affect traditional Bing search eligibility.
• Training can be set site-wide in robots.txt using the shared __usage_ai-training group. Grounding is page-level only, according to a Relevant Audience summary of Microsoft's post.
• Sites that never used NoArchive or NoCache need no transition action. My default advice for most marketers is to leave grounding on Allow.
• Microsoft's 13 October "Topics Portfolio" beta gives you data to judge what a restriction would cost before you set one.

What Microsoft announced

According to Search Engine Roundtable's report of the Bing post, site owners get three options:

• AI Training: allow or block use of content to train AI models.
• AI Grounding: allow or block use of content to help generate AI answers.
• Limited grounding (DisallowExtended): allow use in Microsoft's own AI products but not in its third-party grounding services.

Blocking training while still appearing in AI answers is possible. This is the separation that Google's approach does not make as cleanly: Search Engine Journal notes Google ties training and Gemini Apps grounding together under Google-Extended, while Microsoft separates them. The same day, Google and OpenAI said they plan to honor a shared training signal; I cover that in my post on AI crawler controls, what works and what is folklore.

I could not open Microsoft's own blog post. Bing's webmaster blog index in my fetch showed only the 13 October Topics Portfolio post, and the Bing Webmaster help page on the new preferences returned only a title and topic list. The details below come from Search Engine Roundtable, Search Engine Journal and Relevant Audience's summary, which names Microsoft's post and its Webmaster Tools FAQ as its sources. Confirm exact syntax in Microsoft's documentation before deploying.

Dates and what happens on each

One conflict in the coverage: some outlets describe 1 March as the deadline to set the new preferences, others as the date the old tags stop working. Relevant Audience, citing Microsoft's FAQ, says pages without a recorded temporary preference by 1 March default to Allow for grounding until Microsoft recrawls them. I trust that description because it explains the practical consequence, but I have not seen the FAQ text myself.

Syntax, as reported

Per Relevant Audience's summary: grounding is not supported in robots.txt; a page-level training setting overrides robots.txt; once Bing detects any new preference on a site, it ignores leftover NoArchive and NoCache tags there; and DisallowExtended keeps content available in Copilot but not in third-party grounding services such as Web IQ and the Foundry grounding API. Microsoft says the preferences control content use, not crawling, so a robots.txt block on Bingbot still stops crawling, and they do not create licensing or payment arrangements.

Who needs to act, and who does not

You need to act if your templates or CMS add NoArchive or NoCache. Check this now: search your templates and response headers for those directives. If you find them and you want restrictions to continue, record a temporary grounding preference when the tool opens on 15 December, then add page-level tags before 1 March.

If you never used those tags, you have no transition work. The new controls default to Allow.

Which setting to choose

My read, which is an opinion and not Microsoft guidance:

• Training: Disallow is cheap if you object to model training. Microsoft says it does not affect Bing search results. It also will not remove anything already collected, and Microsoft's honoring starts 1 February 2027.
• Grounding: leave on Allow unless you have a legal or licensing reason. Microsoft states that both restrictive options significantly reduce AI-generated visibility. Grounding is how a page gets used in Copilot answers.
• DisallowExtended is a narrow middle option. It keeps you in Copilot while excluding third-party services that build on Microsoft grounding. Use it only if you have a specific concern about those services.

If you are an edtech or startup team that wants to be recommended in Copilot, restricting grounding works against that goal.

Measure before you restrict

Microsoft's AI Performance report is the first-party view of what you would be giving up. On 13 October 2026 Microsoft announced a Topics Portfolio beta inside it. It groups grounding queries into broader themes and shows Topic Size (approximate citations across all sites), Sites Cited and Queries, plus Top Opportunity Queries where other sites are cited and yours is not, with one-, two- or three-month windows. Microsoft says its figures are directional, not "a precise ledger," and the feature appears only when Bing has enough data for your site.

A correction to my earlier post: in How to use the AI Performance report I wrote that I could not verify the label "Topics Portfolio." Microsoft's 13 October post confirms it as a beta feature within AI Performance. The June 2026 features (Intents, Topics, Citation Share, Compare) are described in Microsoft's June post. It calls Citation Share "an observational metric" and not a scoreboard.

For a sense of small-site reality, one studio's write-up on DEV Community reports 14 Copilot citations between 5 September and 22 October 2026, 13 of them to a single guide page, and "No data available" for grounding queries. That is one site's account, not a trend, but it shows why you should read the report before changing settings. For grounding queries themselves, see Bing grounding queries.

What this means for marketers and founders

1. This week: grep your templates and headers for NoArchive and NoCache. Note which page types carry them.
2. Before 15 December: decide per section whether you want any restriction. Write the reason down; "legal" or "licensing" are valid, "feels safer" is not.
3. Open AI Performance and export your current citations and topics, so you have a baseline before 1 February 2027.
4. Do not add `ai-grounding` tags site-wide as a precaution. It trades visibility for a risk you have not named.
5. Recheck in February. Microsoft honors preferences at recrawl, so effects will not be instant. IndexNow may prompt a recrawl but does not guarantee one, per Relevant Audience's summary.

For the Google side of these choices, see Google's AI opt-out control.

What we do not know yet

• Exact wording of Microsoft's own post and FAQ, which I could not open.
• How Copilot visibility changes after restrictions, since Microsoft gives a direction ("significantly reduce") but no numbers.
• How Microsoft resolves a conflict between robots.txt and page-level settings beyond the training override reported.
• Whether the retirement of NoArchive and NoCache for AI uses also affects how Bing shows cached copies; Microsoft's stated scope is training and grounding.

FAQ

What are Bing's new AI Training and AI Grounding preferences?

They are two separate content-use controls announced on 30 October 2026. Training governs use of your content to train AI models, and grounding governs use of your content to help generate AI answers such as Copilot's.

When do Bing's new AI controls take effect?

Microsoft starts honoring the preferences on 1 February 2027. Temporary grounding settings open in Bing Webmaster Tools on 15 December 2026, and NoArchive and NoCache stop being read as AI preferences after 1 March 2027.

Will blocking AI grounding hurt my Bing rankings?

Microsoft says none of the controls change eligibility for traditional Bing search results. It does warn that restricting grounding significantly reduces visibility in AI-generated experiences.

Do I have to do anything if I never used NoArchive or NoCache?

No transition work is needed according to the coverage I read. The new controls default to Allow.

What does DisallowExtended mean in Bing?

It is an AI Grounding value that keeps content available in Microsoft's own experiences such as Copilot, but not in third-party grounding services built on Microsoft's tools. Relevant Audience names Web IQ and the Foundry grounding API as examples.

Can I set AI grounding in robots.txt?

Not according to the summary of Microsoft's post I read. Training can be set in robots.txt with the __usage_ai-training group, while grounding is a page-level meta tag or HTTP header setting.

How can I see how often Copilot cites my site?

Use the AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools. It shows citations and grounding queries, and since 13 October 2026 a Topics Portfolio beta for sites with enough data.

Want help with this?

I'm Younus Fardeen, an organic growth, SEO and AEO strategist with 4+ years of marketing experience across edtech and startup teams. If you want help auditing your NoArchive and NoCache usage and deciding what to allow for Copilot and Bing, see my work and reach me through the contact form at younusfardeen.com.