What is Bing and why it’s worth keeping an eye on: a guide for B2B companies

What is Bing

When search engines come up in a marketing meeting, the conversation almost always revolves around Google. That is understandable: its dominance of the global market has been overwhelming for more than two decades. However, reducing search strategy to a single channel is, at best, an oversimplification and, at worst, a missed opportunity. Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, has come a long way since its origins, and in 2026 it presents a profile that any B2B marketing team should understand in depth.

This article is not a technical optimization guide or a tools tutorial. It is a foundational piece: what Bing is today, what its history is, what place it occupies in the search ecosystem, why its audience is especially relevant for the B2B sector, and what role artificial intelligence, Copilot, and ChatGPT play in its recent growth. In short, the “what” and the “why” before moving on to the “how.”

Bing in numbers: a search engine that keeps growing

Market share and upward trend

It is common to hear that Bing barely has a presence in the search market, but the figures tell a different story. According to data from StatCounter, Bing’s global share has remained on a trajectory of sustained growth. In February 2023, its market share was 2.81%; in February 2026, that figure reached 4.98%. It may seem modest in absolute terms, but it represents an increase of close to 77% in just three years.

The trend becomes even more significant when Google’s inverse movement is observed: in the same period, its share declined from 93.37% to 90.01%, according to Impression Digital’s analysis. The search market is fragmenting —slowly, yes, but consistently— and Bing is the main beneficiary of that redistribution.

On desktop, where a large share of professional and business activity is concentrated, Bing’s presence is even more noticeable. Globally, it holds an 11–12% share, and in the United States it reaches 38% of the PC search market. These figures translate into a volume of real traffic that no digital marketing manager should ignore.

A considerable search volume

Bing processes more than 450 million searches per day, which is equivalent to a range of between 13 and 14 billion queries per month. For context, this exceeds the traffic of many platforms that companies consider “primary” channels without even blinking.

In addition, integration with artificial intelligence services has driven a 15.4% increase in Bing traffic after the incorporation of AI features, a figure that suggests the growth trend has not yet reached its plateau. Every search represents an intent, and in the B2B environment, every intent can be the start of a high-value buying cycle.

The Microsoft ecosystem: why Bing reaches further than it seems

Windows, Edge, and Copilot: the reach triangle

One of Bing’s most underestimated competitive advantages is its native integration into the Microsoft ecosystem. Windows remains the dominant operating system in corporate environments, and both Edge and Copilot use Bing as their default search engine. Copilot, Microsoft’s AI assistant, comes preinstalled on every Windows 11 PC, which means millions of professionals interact with Bing every day without needing to make an active decision about it.

This detail changes the equation radically. It is not a matter of users consciously “choosing” Bing over Google; it is a matter of Bing being the search engine built into the tools they already use for work. Microsoft 365, Teams, Outlook: the entire enterprise productivity environment is connected in one way or another to Bing. For B2B companies, this means their potential customers are using Bing more often than any general market-share metric suggests.

ChatGPT and Bing-powered search

Since OpenAI integrated Bing as the data source for ChatGPT’s web search, Bing’s indirect reach has multiplied exponentially. ChatGPT has more than 700 million weekly users, and when any of them makes a query that requires up-to-date information, the answer relies on Bing’s results.

This has profound implications for business content visibility. Content that ranks well in Bing not only appears on the search engine’s own results pages, but is also more likely to be cited in ChatGPT responses. In an environment where AI-powered conversational search is gaining weight every day, being optimized for Bing means being present in two high-impact channels at the same time.

Bing’s audience: a highly attractive profile for B2B

Purchasing power and professional profile

If there is one argument that should capture the attention of any B2B marketing professional, it is the demographic profile of Bing’s audience. According to Microsoft Advertising data, 50% of Bing users are in the top 25% by household income. In the United States, 41% of Bing users have annual incomes above $100,000.

That is no coincidence. Bing’s integration into Windows and corporate environments means its user base naturally skews toward active professionals with decision-making authority and purchasing budgets. For companies selling high-value products or services, enterprise software, consulting, or industrial solutions, this audience is exactly the type of buyer that is both the hardest —and the most profitable— to reach.

Bing in the corporate environment

Corporate usage figures reinforce this reading. According to Microsoft Advertising, 55% of business users in the United States use Bing to research products and services before making purchase decisions. In addition, 23% of business executives say they prefer Bing over Google for their professional searches.

These data reveal something important: Bing is not simply a residual search engine that users reach by default. There is a significant segment of business decision-makers who use it deliberately. In the B2B ecosystem, where sales cycles are long and decisions involve multiple stakeholders, being present where these decision-makers search for information is not optional; it is strategic.

It is also worth noting that 54.68% of video game console users perform their searches through Bing, and that in China, Bing holds a 26.1% market share. While these data do not directly affect every B2B company, they illustrate the platform’s global and diversified reach beyond the stereotype of a “minority search engine.”

Copilot Search and conversational search

Multi-turn search: context that remains

In April 2025, Microsoft launched Copilot Search in Bing, a feature that transforms the search experience by allowing multi-turn queries. Unlike traditional search, where each query is independent, Copilot Search maintains the context of the previous conversation, making it possible to refine results progressively.

By February 2026, the multi-turn feature had been rolled out globally. This means a user can search, for example, “project management software for teams of more than 50 people,” receive contextualized results, and then ask “which of these offer SAP integration?” without needing to reformulate the entire query. The search engine “remembers” the conversation.

What changes for business content

Conversational search changes the rules of the game for B2B content creation. In a turn-based search model, content that answers questions in a structured, complete, and topically deep way is more likely to be selected as a source. Pages that offer comprehensive information on a topic —comparisons, detailed guides, data-backed analyses— become ideal candidates to feed Copilot Search responses.

For B2B marketing teams, this reinforces the importance of creating high-quality “foundational” content: resources that not only rank for individual keywords, but cover a topic with the breadth and authority needed to be cited in AI search contexts.

Advertising on Bing: less competition, more profitability

Lower CPC and LinkedIn targeting

One of the most tangible arguments in favor of including Bing in a digital marketing strategy is economic. The cost per click (CPC) on Bing Ads is between 33% and 70% lower than on Google Ads, depending on the sector and keyword. For B2B companies with finite advertising budgets, this cost difference translates directly into a higher return on investment.

But the true differentiating advantage for B2B lies in a feature exclusive to Microsoft Advertising: LinkedIn profile targeting. Bing Ads allows ads to be targeted based on the user’s job function, company, industry, and seniority level, thanks to integration with LinkedIn data. No other search engine offers this level of native professional targeting.

For a company that sells, for example, cybersecurity solutions to technology directors at midsize companies, the ability to show ads exclusively to that profile drastically reduces advertising waste and maximizes the quality of the leads generated.

A complementary, not substitute, channel

It is worth emphasizing that the recommendation is not to abandon Google in favor of Bing, but to incorporate Bing as a complementary channel within a diversified strategy. Bing’s advertising revenues amount to between $13 and $14 billion annually, with year-over-year growth of 10% to 20%, confirming that advertisers are discovering —and validating— the platform’s potential.

A strategy that combines Google Ads to capture massive volume with Bing Ads to reach high-value professional audiences at a lower cost is, in most B2B scenarios, more efficient than depending on a single channel.

SEO in Bing: key differences from Google

Social signals and visual content

Although it shares many fundamental principles with SEO for Google, optimizing for Bing presents some relevant differences. Bing gives greater weight to social signals: a brand’s presence and activity on social media influence its ranking more directly. For B2B companies with an active LinkedIn strategy, this represents a natural advantage.

Bing also places special value on high-quality visual content. Optimized images, embedded videos, and enriched multimedia elements contribute positively to ranking. In addition, Microsoft’s search engine tends to interpret meta tags more literally than Google, which means that good on-page optimization —titles, descriptions, alt tags— has a more direct and predictable impact on results.

Less keyword competition

The lower adoption of Bing as an SEO channel by most companies creates a beneficial paradox for those that do include it in their strategy: keyword competition is significantly lower. Terms that would be extremely costly and difficult to rank for in Google may offer much more accessible visibility opportunities in Bing.

For B2B companies in niche sectors —industrial technology, professional services, specialized software— this lower level of competition can make the difference between appearing on the first page of results and not existing for a valuable segment of potential customers.

Bing is the search engine you should no longer ignore

Bing has completed a transformation that positions it as much more than a marginal alternative to Google. With a steadily growing market share, a high-income audience, deep integration with Copilot and ChatGPT, and advertising opportunities with a better cost-performance ratio, Bing has become a strategic channel that B2B companies cannot afford to ignore.

The key is not to choose between Google and Bing, but to understand that each platform brings differentiated advantages. Google offers volume; Bing offers a professional profile, less competition, and an AI ecosystem that amplifies the visibility of quality content. For B2B marketing teams seeking to maximize their return on search investment, diversifying toward Bing is not a risky bet, but an informed decision backed by data.

At Smart Team, search strategy is approached with a comprehensive vision that includes all relevant channels for each client. If your company wants to explore Bing’s potential within a professional SEO strategy, we will be delighted to analyze the opportunities together.