What Is Microsoft Copilot?

Microsoft Copilot is Microsoft's AI assistant, built into Windows 11, the Edge browser, Microsoft 365, and copilot.microsoft.com. It answers in conversation. When it uses the live web, it grounds those answers in Bing's index and cites the pages it drew on. For a business, that link means being indexed by Bing now feeds Microsoft Copilot, not just a search box.

What is Copilot, and where do you meet it?

Copilot is Microsoft's AI assistant, and you meet it in several places.

It sits in Windows 11, in the Edge browser, in Microsoft 365 apps, and at copilot.microsoft.com. Microsoft's overview, updated in September 2026, describes Copilot Chat as an AI chat experience that combines large language models with grounding from web data. The same page calls it "primarily web grounded".

The naming has settled recently. Microsoft renamed Microsoft 365 Copilot to Microsoft Copilot, and Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat to Microsoft Copilot Chat.

Under the branding, the core idea is steady: a chat assistant that can pull in current web information.

How does Copilot answer with web information?

Copilot answers from the live web by grounding on Bing.

Microsoft's documentation says Copilot "may fetch information from the Bing search service when information from the web helps to provide a better, more grounded response."

That is the mechanism worth understanding. A page Bing has indexed can appear inside a Copilot answer, with a citation, even when the user never opened a Bing search box.

Copilot sits on top of Bing's index rather than beside it. It joins Google AI Mode and Perplexity as AI surfaces that answer with cited web pages.

	Bing search	Microsoft Copilot
What you get	A page of ranked links	A written, grounded answer
Shows sources	Yes, as links	Yes, cited in the answer
What powers it	Its own web index	Bing's index plus a language model

What does Copilot mean for your website?

Copilot turns Bing visibility into AI visibility.

If Bing can find and index your pages, they become eligible to appear in Copilot's grounded answers. The crawler to keep happy is Bingbot.

Bing's webmaster guidelines say to allow Bingbot to crawl your site, and list blocking it in robots.txt as something to avoid.

The first thing we check on a site chasing AI mentions is whether its own robots.txt quietly blocks a crawler it needs. Block Bingbot, and you remove yourself from both Bing and Copilot in one line.

Whether Copilot is worth dedicated effort in Malaysia is a separate question. It is set by how many people here actually use it, which we weigh in does Bing and Copilot matter in Malaysia.

Frequently asked questions

Is Copilot the same as ChatGPT?

No, though both are conversational AI assistants. Copilot is Microsoft's, and it grounds its web answers in Bing's index. ChatGPT is OpenAI's, and its search feature uses OpenAI's own crawler. For visibility, each reaches your site by a different path, so they are two separate tasks.

Does Copilot cite its sources?

Yes, when it uses the web. A grounded Copilot answer shows the pages it drew on, so a reader can open them and check. When your page is one of those citations, your business is named inside the answer, which is the visibility that makes Bing indexing worthwhile.

Do I need to do anything special for Copilot?

Not really. Be indexed by Bing, and keep Bingbot allowed in your robots.txt. The answer-first pages that rank on Google already suit Bing and Copilot. Verifying your site in Bing Webmaster Tools is a useful, low-effort extra that speeds up indexing.

What is the difference between Copilot and Bing?

Bing is the search engine and the index behind it. Copilot is the AI assistant that reads and summarizes from that index into a written answer. Bing returns a page of links; Copilot returns a grounded reply with citations. The same crawl and index feed both.

Is Copilot worth it for a Malaysian business?

For most, it is a by-product rather than a target. The pages that rank on Google already suit Bing and Copilot, so the extra effort is small. Whether to spend any dedicated time on it depends on local usage, which we weigh in our Bing and Copilot guide.

Being found across every AI assistant

Storming Solutions runs SEO, AEO, and GEO for Malaysian businesses from Kuala Lumpur. We build pages that answer clearly and stay open to every crawler that matters, from Googlebot to Bingbot to the AI search bots.

That openness is what decides whether an assistant quotes you or a competitor.

We will not sell you a Copilot-only package. The honest move is to earn Google first and let Bing and Copilot follow at little extra cost, alongside your core SEO in Malaysia work. Want to know how your pages read to Copilot, Bing, and Google today? Ask us through our SEO, AEO and GEO service, or message us on WhatsApp.