How do you use Bing Topics Portfolio for editorial planning?
Use the report to find candidate questions, then check each one against your services, existing articles and available evidence. Give the strongest candidate a clear reader, an owner and a next action. A useful output is a short decision queue that a person can approve.
Microsoft introduced Topics Portfolio on 13 October 2026. The beta groups grounding queries into themes and surfaces opportunities. Its metrics are approximate, and access depends on sufficient data. The workflow below is my editorial recommendation, not a measured result from a client account.
Choose the business question before opening the report
Start with one offer you can deliver today. A consultancy might choose research briefings for small teams rather than everything related to artificial intelligence. Write down who needs the service, what they are trying to decide and which existing page explains the offer.
Keep the reporting period with every observation. Comparing a one-month view with a three-month view can change what appears important. Use a consistent window for the initial review and record any later change. If the beta is unavailable, keep that limitation visible and plan from the evidence you do have.
Check the archive before commissioning a new page
For each promising query, search the article archive for the underlying question, not just the exact words. Read the closest page and identify the missing answer. A different title is insufficient justification for a new article.
Assign one of four actions: improve an existing answer, add a supporting section, commission a distinct article, or take no action. Keep the existing URL beside the decision. That makes it harder for an automated research assistant to turn a large archive into several versions of the same advice.
Give every candidate an evidence requirement
A small queue needs a reader question, business fit, nearest existing URL, evidence needed, proposed action, owner and review date. Preserve any reported range as a range. A topic figure is not a forecast of visits or enquiries.
Consider this fictional candidate: a studio sees a question about approving AI-written monthly reports. It already has a general automation guide, but no worked approval example. The next action could be to document an authorised sample with a visible approval step. If nobody can supply that evidence, defer the article rather than fill the gap with an invented case.
- Question: what decision must the reader make?
- Coverage: where is the nearest existing answer?
- Evidence: what can the team show or verify?
- Action: update, commission, defer or reject?
- Responsibility: who approves the brief and when?
Keep ranking and approval separate
Prioritise candidates by relevance to a real offer, the importance of the reader's decision and the quality of the evidence available. Use a simple high, medium or low judgment with one sentence of reasoning. Precise-looking scores can conceal an unsupported assumption just as easily as vague labels can.
A person should approve the final question and its relationship to the archive. Automation can organise records and flag similar titles. It should retain the source wording and uncertainty so the reviewer can disagree with the suggestion.
Review the queue by decisions completed
At the next checkpoint, count useful decisions: an obsolete section corrected, a redundant idea rejected, a supported article approved. Later, inspect the published work's discovery and enquiry evidence separately. Completing the queue does not establish a citation gain.
The SEO Engine describes related site operations. If research repeatedly creates more tasks than your team can review, an AI research and briefing system can put source checks and editorial ownership into the same workflow.
Link Map
Sources and editorial review
Sources checked on 19 October 2026. The publication date is assigned to the 13–19 October editorial series; this edition was prepared and reviewed on 19 October 2026. Proposed workflows and illustrative examples are JQ AI SYSTEMS editorial analysis, not reports of completed client tests.
- Microsoft Bing: Introducing Topics Portfolio (Beta) in AI Performance (13 October 2026; Primary platform announcement).