Does ChatGPT use Bing? How AI assistants search the web
Set up Bing and let OpenAI's crawler in; both are free. Microsoft says Copilot sends its generated search queries to the Bing search service 5. Microsoft announced Bing for ChatGPT in 2023 1, but OpenAI now speaks of "third-party search providers" and its own crawler 23. Some AI assistants say Bing, some do not, so cover both.
Ms Lim's Thursday lunch went to another caterer
Ms Lim, an office manager in Paya Lebar, has a client visit on Thursday and nobody has ordered lunch. At her desk she opens Microsoft Copilot and types the whole errand. One caterer in the area fits it exactly. Its website never says so.
Find me a caterer in Singapore that can do a halal buffet lunch for forty people this Thursday and invoice the company afterwards.
Copilot turned her sentence into a search, took what came back, and named three caterers. Hers was not among them, and the caterer that would have said yes never knew it had been asked. A few years ago she would have typed "halal buffet catering" and phoned down the results.
So the caterer asks what every owner asks. Is that my business? Are others already winning these orders? Part of the answer is a plain question about plumbing: which search index does the AI read, and is my site in it?
The order of work: Bing first, then OpenAI's crawler
You do not need to settle which provider sits behind which AI. You need to be present in both places the sources point to, and Bing comes first because Microsoft names it outright 5.
Start with Bing's index. Create a Bing Webmaster Tools account and verify your site. Submit your sitemap there. Turn on IndexNow, the protocol that tells participating search engines when a page has been added or changed, so a new price list or opening hours reach the index without waiting for a crawl. Then check that your robots.txt does not block Bingbot.
Then allow OAI-SearchBot. OpenAI's help page says: "To make a website eligible for inclusion, allow OAI-Searchbot to crawl the site", and it also asks you to allow OpenAI's published searchbot IP addresses 3.
The whole job is an afternoon. Neither step changes how you are ranked. They make your pages eligible; what an AI then chooses to cite is its decision, which nobody outside can promise.
Copilot names Bing in its own documentation
Microsoft's page on data, privacy and security for web search in Copilot is plain about the mechanism. In its words: "Copilot generates a search query that it sends to the Bing search service" 5. The same page says that Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft Copilot Chat both use generated search queries sent to the Bing search service "to ground responses in web data" 5.
It says the query goes to Bing, not that your site is cited whenever it is in Bing. But a page Bing has never indexed cannot come back from Bing, so being indexed is the necessary first step.
ChatGPT: Bing was announced, and the wording has since changed
On 23 May 2023 Microsoft wrote: "I'm pleased to announce we are bringing Bing to ChatGPT as the default search experience" 1. That is where the idea that ChatGPT searches through Bing comes from.
The wording from OpenAI is different. When it introduced ChatGPT search on 31 October 2024, it said the feature "leverages third-party search providers, as well as content provided directly by our partners" 2. It did not name a provider in that sentence. OpenAI's help page explains the process: ChatGPT rewrites your prompt into targeted queries and sends them to search providers, and the page links Microsoft's privacy statement among the providers 3.
The Enterprise and Edu help page is the one place we found the name in OpenAI's own words. It says structured data based on your prompt "may be shared with Bing or third-party data providers to return specialized visual or interactive results" 4. That is about specialised results, not every answer.
What each company says, side by side
| AI tool | What the company says it searches with | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Copilot and Copilot Chat | Generated search queries are sent to the Bing search service. | Microsoft Learn 5 |
| ChatGPT, announcement of 2023 | Bing as the default search experience. | Bing Blog 1 |
| ChatGPT search, launch post | Third-party search providers, plus content from partners. Bing is not named. | OpenAI 2 |
| ChatGPT search, help page | Prompts rewritten into queries sent to search providers; its own crawler, OAI-SearchBot, makes a site eligible. | OpenAI Help Center 3 |
| ChatGPT Enterprise and Edu | Structured data may be shared with Bing or third-party data providers for specialised results. | OpenAI Help Center 4 |
One company names Bing without qualification. The other names it in an announcement and one product page, and speaks of providers in general elsewhere.
What I tell an owner not to spend on
When the sources do not settle a question, a vendor will settle it for you, for a fee. I tell owners to keep the wallet closed for anything that claims to "optimise for Bing so ChatGPT cites you". Neither company publishes a rule that turns an indexed page into a citation, so nobody can sell one honestly.
Do not pay for a tool to submit your URLs to Bing either: Bing Webmaster Tools and IndexNow cost nothing. Do not drop Google Search Console to make room; the two are an addition, not a trade.
Do not back one provider and ignore the other. Microsoft names Bing for Copilot 5; OpenAI names its own crawler and unnamed providers for ChatGPT 3. A site that is in Bing and allows OAI-SearchBot has covered both.
Google still works, a little less every year
A site that ranks on Google is still found, and still gets calls. Each year the share shrinks: by early 2026 the zero-click share of US Google searches had reached 68%, up from 49% in 2019 6. Those customers read an answer and move on.
Think of Ms Lim's Thursday. The work is to make your site the one that Copilot, ChatGPT and Google AI Mode can read and name for her kind of errand, which means being in Bing and open to OpenAI's crawler. That is what we do for clients. A free scan of your own site is where it starts.
Questions people ask
Does Microsoft Copilot use Bing?
Yes, and Microsoft says so. Its documentation states that Copilot generates a search query that it sends to the Bing search service, and that Copilot and Copilot Chat both use such queries to ground responses in web data 5. A page absent from Bing cannot be returned that way.
Does ChatGPT use Bing?
Microsoft announced Bing as ChatGPT's default search in 2023 1. OpenAI's launch post for ChatGPT search names no provider, only "third-party search providers" 2, while its Enterprise and Edu page mentions Bing 4. We treat Bing as likely, not as confirmed for every answer.
What is OAI-SearchBot?
It is OpenAI's crawler for ChatGPT search. OpenAI says that to make a website eligible for inclusion, you should allow OAI-Searchbot to crawl the site and allow its published searchbot IP addresses 3.
Do I still need Google Search Console?
Yes. Nothing above says Google matters less. Bing Webmaster Tools is an addition, not a replacement, and a site verified in both shows you how each engine sees your pages.
What is IndexNow?
It is a protocol that lets a site tell participating search engines the moment a page is added, changed or removed, instead of waiting to be recrawled. Many site platforms and plugins offer it as a setting. It speeds up notification only.
Will being in Bing get me cited in ChatGPT or Copilot?
It makes you eligible, nothing more. Neither Microsoft nor OpenAI publishes a rule that turns an indexed page into a citation, and we do not offer one. Fix the hygiene, then ask the AI your customers' questions and see who is named.
Next: Which AI crawlers should you allow in robots.txt, and which should you block?
Sources
- Microsoft Bing Blog, Bing at Microsoft Build 2023: Continuing the Transformation of Search, 23 May 2023. Accessed 29 September 2026.
- OpenAI, Introducing ChatGPT search, 31 October 2024. Accessed 29 September 2026.
- OpenAI Help Center, Searching the web with ChatGPT, undated. Accessed 29 September 2026.
- OpenAI Help Center, ChatGPT search for Enterprise and Edu, undated. Accessed 29 September 2026.
- Microsoft Learn, Data, privacy, and security for web search in Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft Copilot Chat, undated. Accessed 29 September 2026.
- SparkToro, In 2026, less than one third of Google searches still send a click, 9 June 2026. Accessed 13 September 2026.