Microsoft Bing

Report September 2025

Submitted
Microsoft Ireland Operations Limited (MIOL)– the provider of Bing’s services in the European Union (EU) – welcomes the opportunity to file this report on our compliance with the commitments and measures of the strengthened 2022 EU Code of Practice on Disinformation that we subscribed to in our Subscription Document dated 15 January 2025. This report covers the period from 1 January to 30 June 2025 (the “Reporting Period”).    

Bing Search is an online search engine with the primary objective of connecting users to the most relevant search results from the web. Users come to Bing with a specific research topic in mind and expect Bing to provide links to the most relevant and authoritative third-party websites on the Internet that are responsive to their search terms. Therefore, addressing misinformation or disinformation in organic search results often requires a different approach than may be appropriate for other types of online services, as over-moderation of content in search could have a significant negative impact on the right to access information, freedom of expression, and media plurality. 

Bing carefully balances these competing fundamental rights and interests as it works to ensure that its algorithms return the most high-quality content available that is relevant to the user’s queries, working to avoid causing harm to users without unduly limiting their ability to access answers to the questions they seek. In some cases, different features may require different interventions based on functionality and user expectations. 

While Bing’s remediation efforts may on occasion involve removal of content from search results (where legal or policy considerations warrant removal), in many cases, Bing has found that actions such as targeted ranking interventions, or additional digital literacy features such as Answers pointing to high authority sources, or content provenance indicators, are more effective. Bing regularly reviews the efficacy of its measures to identify additional areas for improvement and works with internal and external subject matter experts in key policy areas to identify new threat vectors or improved mechanisms to help prevent users from being unexpectedly exposed to harmful content in search results that they did not expressly seek to find. 

Bing offers numerous generative AI experiences for users. For example, users may see generative search results on the main search engine results page for informational and complex queries. Generative search results are contained and indicated with an icon with the sentence “This summary was generated by AI from multiple online sources. Find the source links used for this summary under "Based on sources".” Users continue to see traditional search results immediately below any generative results. 

Bing also offers a fully generative search experience, previously known as Bing Generative Search and rebranded in April 2025 to Copilot Search. Copilot Search combines the foundation of Bing’s search results with the power of large and small language models (LLMs and SLMs). It understands the search query, reviews millions of sources of information, dynamically matches content, and generates search results in a new AI-generated layout to fulfil the intent of the user’s query more effectively. 

Bing also offers Bing Image Creator and Bing Video Creator. These experiences, powered by the very latest DALL∙E models from our partners at OpenAI, allow a user to create images and videos simply by using their own words to describe the picture they want to see. 

Bing follows the “Trustworthy Search Principles” (found at How Bing delivers search results - Microsoft Support) to guide the product design, experience, algorithms, and mitigation measures that Bing adopts to ensure users’ expectations are met while addressing potential risks or harms arising from use of the service, including across Bing’s GenAI experiences. 

As confirmed by Bing’s Year Two and Three Digital Service Act (DSA) Systemic Risk Assessments, the residual risks most relevant to misinformation and disinformation (i.e. those relating to Civic Discourse and Electoral Process, Public Health and Public Security) are categorised as “Low”. Of note, during the Reporting Period, Bing participated in the Rapid Response Systems activated for the elections in Germany, Romania, Portugal and Poland, and received no notifications during this period. 

Bing supports the objectives of the European Code of Practice on Disinformation (the “Code”) and we are committed to actively working with Signatories and the European Commission in the context of this Code to defend against disinformation on the Bing service.

Unless stated otherwise, data provided under this report covers a reporting period of 1 Jan 2025 to 31 June 2025 (“Reporting Period”).

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Elections 2025
[Note: Signatories are requested to provide information relevant to their particular response to the threats and challenges they observed on their service(s). They ensure that the information below provides an accurate and complete report of their relevant actions. As operational responses to crisis/election situations can vary from service to service, an absence of information should not be considered a priori a shortfall in the way a particular service has responded. Impact metrics are accurate to the best of signatories’ abilities to measure them].
Threats observed or anticipated
Bing Search anticipated instances of information manipulation with possible actor intent to manipulate search algorithms and lead users to data voids and low-authority content related to elections. As part of its regular information integrity operations, Bing detected information manipulation themes related to the German national election, which have been ingested to inform defensive search interventions. 
Mitigations in place
Bing Search takes a multifaceted approach to protecting election integrity and regularly updates its processes, policies, and practices to adapt to evolving risks, trends, and technological innovations. This approach includes: (1) defensive search interventions; (2) regular direction of users to high authority, high quality sources; (3) removal of auto suggest and related search terms considered likely to lead users to low authority content; (4) partnerships with independent organizations  for threat intelligence on information manipulation, civic integrity and nation state affiliated actors to  inform potential algorithmic interventions and contribute to broader research community; (5) special information panels and answers to direct users to high authority sources concerning elections and voting; (6) internal working groups dedicated to addressing company-wide election initiatives; (7) establishing special election-focused product feature teams; (8) conducting internal research on content provenance and elections; (9) evaluating and undertaking red-team testing for generative AI features with respect to elections; (10) ensuring Responsible AI reviews for all AI features; (11) undertaking comprehensive risk assessments related to elections and electoral processes; (12) developing and continuing to improve targeted monitoring both for web search and Bing generative AI features; (13) restricting generative AI responses for certain types of election-related content; (14) leveraging blocklists and classifiers in generative AI experiences to restrict generation of images or certain types of content concerning politicians and certain election-related topics (15) integrating information on political parties, candidates, and elections from local election authorities (including in the EU) or high authority third party sources to inform defensive interventions and election-related product mitigations; and (16) regularly evaluating whether additional measures, metrics, or mitigations should be implemented. These measures are integrated into Bing Search, Copilot Search, and Bing Image Creator and Bing Video Creator, along with the additional safeguards discussed throughout this report.

In addition, we offer AccountGuard which is Microsoft’s advanced security program designed to protect organizations involved in democratic processes and civil society. The program provides monitoring, threat detection, and rapid response services.. AccountGuard is available in 23 European Union countries - including Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden - and is also accessible to candidates for the EU Parliament from any member nation.
Policies and Terms and Conditions
Outline any changes to your policies
Policy - 50.1.1
Authoritative Information sources 
Changes (such as newly introduced policies, edits, adaptation in scope or implementation) - 50.1.2
Bing Search empowered voters with authoritative election information on Bing. We do this in partnership with organizations that provide information on authoritative sources, ensuring that queries about election administration will surface reputable sites 
Policy - 50.1.4
Authoritative Information sources 
Changes (such as newly introduced policies, edits, adaptation in scope or implementation) - 50.1.5
In advance of the German federal election, Bing launched a special “How to Vote” information. Answer to show high authority information related to the election for users, localized by language. Bing Search directed users to official source from the Federal Returning Officer on select information seeking queries related to this election. 
Rationale - 50.1.6
Policy - 50.1.7
Deepfakes and Elections 
Changes (such as newly introduced policies, edits, adaptation in scope or implementation) - 50.1.8
Microsoft-2024 Elections is a webpage created to empower political candidates and campaigns to report alleged deepfakes of themselves to Microsoft. To date, we have not received an actionable report of deceptive AI targeting elections on Microsoft platforms.

Microsoft’s Office of Responsible AI has also established policies concerning election-related content and works with teams, including Bing, Copilot Search, Tech for Society and Bing Image Creator and Bing Video Creator on implementation. 
Rationale - 50.1.9