How this works
Microsoft doesn't run a separate AI crawler. Copilot draws on the same index that powers Bing search, and that index is built by bingbot. There is no AI-only switch: allowing or blocking bingbot decides both at once.
Why it matters
Because there's no separate control, blocking bingbot to keep your content away from Copilot also removes you from Bing search. And Bing's index reaches further than Bing itself: it sits behind other products and smaller search tools. One line in a file can take out more than you intended.
The reverse is just as true: allow bingbot and you're available to both, with no extra work.
How to fix
1. Check your robots.txt. Open yoursite.com/robots.txt in your browser. If you see this, your site is blocked:
User-agent: bingbot
Disallow: /Delete those lines. Nothing needs to go in their place. With no rule against it, the crawler is allowed. You can see which crawlers Bing uses in Bing's own documentation.
2. Check bot protection on your CDN or hosting. This is the more common cause for Copilot. Bot-blocking tools sometimes treat bingbot as suspicious traffic and return an error to it while real visitors see the page normally. On Cloudflare, check the Block AI Bots setting and any firewall rules you've added.
3. Confirm it in Bing Webmaster Tools. Bing offers a free account where you can see whether your pages are being crawled and indexed. If you only verify one thing, verify it here. This is the one assistant that tells you directly.
Where to change this on your platform
WordPress
robots.txt is normally managed by your SEO plugin: editing robots.txt in Yoast SEO.
Shopify
the file comes from a theme template: editing robots.txt.liquid.
Wix
there's a built-in editor: editing your site's robots.txt file.
Squarespace
you can't edit the file by hand. The AI-crawler checkbox under Settings → Crawlers (Request that AI models exclude your site) doesn't cover bingbot at all. So if Copilot can't reach a Squarespace site, the block is coming from somewhere else, usually a CDN or firewall in front of the site.
If you can't find the setting
If robots.txt looks right and your security settings are off, ask your hosting provider whether they filter crawler traffic. That's the one place a site owner can't see from the outside.
