Report March 2026

Submitted

Executive summary

Microsoft Ireland Operations Limited (MIOL) – the provider of Bing’s services in the European Union (EU) – welcomes the opportunity to file this report on Bing compliance with the commitments and measures of the EU Code of Conduct on Disinformation that it subscribed to in its Subscription Document dated 15 January 2025. This report covers the period from 1 July to 31 Dec 2025 (the “Reporting Period”).

Bing 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" Learn more about Bing results how Bing delivers search results.” Users continue to see traditional search results immediately below any generative results.

Bing also offers a fully generative search experience, known Copilot Search (see 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 (see Free AI Image Generator - Bing Image Creator). These experiences allow users to create images and videos simply by using their own words to describe, and - within the Reporting Period - image uploads to inspire, the picture they want to see. These features can be accessed directly within Bing.com.

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”. While Bing is a participant in the elections Rapid Response System, it received no notifications during any of the elections for which this system was activated during the reporting period.

Bing supports the objectives of the European Code of Conduct 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 possible harms of disinformation on the Bing service.

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

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Commitment 26

Relevant Signatories commit to provide access, wherever safe and practicable, to continuous, real-time or near real-time, searchable stable access to non-personal data and anonymised, aggregated, or manifestly-made public data for research purposes on Disinformation through automated means such as APIs or other open and accessible technical solutions allowing the analysis of said data.

We signed up to the following measures of this commitment

Measure 26.1 Measure 26.3

In line with this commitment, did you deploy new implementation measures (e.g. changes to your terms of service, new tools, new policies, etc)?

If yes, list these implementation measures here

N/A

Do you plan to put further implementation measures in place in the next 6 months to substantially improve the maturity of the implementation of this commitment?

Yes

If yes, which further implementation measures do you plan to put in place in the next 6 months?

Bing is dedicated to supporting the research community and welcomes feedback from this vital community and the Commission on the types of data that would be most useful for safety research.

Measure 26.1

Relevant Signatories will provide public access to non-personal data and anonymised, aggregated or manifestly-made public data pertinent to undertaking research on Disinformation on their services, such as engagement and impressions (views) of content hosted by their services, with reasonable safeguards to address risks of abuse (e.g. API policies prohibiting malicious or commercial uses).

QRE 26.1.1

Relevant Signatories will describe the tools and processes in place to provide public access to non-personal data and anonymised, aggregated and manifestly-made public data pertinent to undertaking research on Disinformation, as well as the safeguards in place to address risks of abuse.

Bing and Microsoft are dedicated to supporting the research community and regularly provide information and data to the research community in a variety of ways.

Consistent with the EU’s CoCD and the Digital Services Act (DSA) regulation, researchers may request data from Bing. Bing uses the same intake process for both CoCD and DSA research requests. Researchers may easily request access for publicly accessible Bing data through Bing’s Qualified Researcher Program (aligned with DSA Article 40(12)) and resources for researchers seeking access to datasets (aligned with DSA Article 40(4) and launched in this Reporting Period). However, because these datasets are already available open-source (see below), some researchers may elect to obtain datasets via the below means to avoid the burden of an application and credentialing process.

Bing also offers use of Bing APIs to the public, referred to as “Grounding with Bing”. These APIs are offered for less than 15 Euros for up to 1,000 transactions per month, which may be leveraged by the research community.

Researchers who are registered webmasters may utilize Bing’s Keyword research and Backlinks Webmaster Tools to provide insights into search usage and keywords. Bing is working on ways to provide deeper research access to the tool across the research community and looks forward to providing more information as it is available.

Microsoft maintains a public portal of codes, APIs, software development kits, and datasets that are available to the Research Community at Researcher Tools: code, datasets, & models - Microsoft Research. These public research tools can be accessed by researchers and download instantaneously without formal applications or login credentials.

Microsoft is also a leader in Responsible AI and offers and offers a range of tools and resources to promote responsible usage of artificial intelligence. Information on Microsoft’s tools, practices, and policies to uphold its responsible AI principles can be found at Responsible AI: Ethical policies and practices | Microsoft AI.

Lastly, given the open nature of the Bing Search index and public nature of search results, researchers can utilize Bing Search, Copilot Search, Bing Image Creator and Bing Video Creator to run specific queries and analyze results (unlike social media which may require private accounts or connections between users to access certain materials).

QRE 26.1.2

Relevant Signatories will publish information related to data points available via Measure 26.1, as well as details regarding the technical protocols to be used to access these data points, in the relevant help centre. This information should also be reachable from the Transparency Centre. At minimum, this information will include definitions of the data points available, technical and methodological information about how they were created, and information about the representativeness of the data.

In the reporting period, Bing published information on resources for researchers seeking access to datasets.

SLI 26.1.1

Relevant Signatories will provide quantitative information on the uptake of the tools and processes described in Measure 26.1, such as number of users.

Bing has a tracking tool for all the data requests by researchers in alignment with DSA, Article 40(12) and Article 40(4). The tool includes the information on the researcher, received and response dates, link to information related to the application, provided answer and rational amongst other information.

Bing did not receive any CoCD data requests during the Reporting Period.

	Nr of CoCD data requests
EU	0,0