Semrush Stopped Tracking Copilot Today, and the Drop Is Not Visibility
Every AI visibility dashboard lost one engine today, and the first number to move will be misread by most of its customers.
Semrush discontinued Microsoft Copilot tracking in its Enterprise AIO on 9 November 2026, telling customers that changes to Copilot's access requirements prevent AI visibility platforms from collecting the data needed. The notice went out on 28 October. Copilot was one of nine AI surfaces the product tracked, so dashboards that compare across engines now cover eight, and any Copilot line in them will read empty from today rather than zero.1
The distinction between empty and zero is the whole practical story. A dashboard that stops receiving data and a brand that loses visibility produce the same flat line, and only one of them is a marketing problem.
What Semrush told customers
The notice is short. It attributes the change to "recent changes to Microsoft Copilot's access requirements" that prevent AI visibility platforms, including Semrush Enterprise AIO, from collecting the data needed to track Copilot performance. It states that Copilot tracking will therefore be discontinued on 9 November, and that tracking across other supported AI platforms remains unaffected.
Semrush did not name the specific Microsoft change. That gap matters, because the widely reported candidates are plausible without being confirmed:2
| Possible cause | Status |
|---|---|
| Microsoft Copilot terms effective 18 August 2026 requiring a Microsoft account and prohibiting bots and scrapers | Published by Microsoft; not named by Semrush |
| Sign-in wall being rolled into Edge through October | Reported; not confirmed as the trigger |
| Any other access change | Semrush has not said |
Prices measured on 27 October 2026. Vendor plan terms, allowances and prices change without notice, so treat every figure on this page as a dated snapshot rather than a permanent fact. Where a number here differs from the vendor's own pricing page, the vendor's page is correct and the figure above is simply older than it.
An AI visibility product works by putting questions to an assistant and recording which brands appear in the answers. Once the assistant requires an authenticated session, those answers become personalised by chat history and memory, and a simulated query no longer produces an unbiased snapshot. Microsoft's published terms also rule out automated access. Either constraint alone would end the method.
The choice customers have to make
Customers who tracked prompts in Copilot were offered two paths, and they are mutually exclusive.
Return the Copilot prompts to the overall balance, freeing that capacity for the platforms Semrush still covers. Or keep the historical Copilot data, while those prompts continue to count against the balance even though no new Copilot data will arrive.
There is no default and no deadline. The decision goes through a Customer Success Manager, which means every affected account makes it on a different date, and mid-quarter comparisons between accounts stop being meaningful.
Why this is the pattern rather than an incident
No AI visibility vendor has an official API for brand citations. Every one of them is prompting or scraping these assistants, and that access rests on terms the assistant operator can change without consulting anyone.
The same vulnerability appeared twice this month from different directions. Cloudflare argued on 5 November that sites and agents need signed identity and accountability precisely because agent traffic is currently indistinguishable from anything else. Zapier's test the following day showed that even a successful read passes through a second model with its own quoting rules. Measurement vendors sit on the same unstable foundation, and only now has one of them had to say so publicly.
Glenn Gabe's framing on 29 October was the right one: AI visibility tools are facing their own version of tracking issues. His closing question, when other platforms would tell their customers, has not been answered by anyone else yet.
The free alternative that survives
Microsoft's own reporting does not depend on simulating a signed-out user, which is why it keeps working when the third-party route closes. The AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools logs when Microsoft Copilot and Bing's AI summaries cite pages from a verified site, and it is free.
It measures something different, and the difference is not cosmetic. Citation counts are first-party, recorded when your URL is actually used as a grounding source, not when a simulated prompt happens to mention your brand. That makes it narrower and more reliable at the same time. It covers Microsoft surfaces only, so ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews are all absent.
For a site without an enterprise dashboard, the free stack now reads like this. Search Console's Generative AI report gives impressions for AI Overviews and AI Mode, with no clicks. Bing Webmaster Tools gives Copilot citations, with no click data either. Both are first-party and both are free, and neither tells you whether the visibility produced a visit.
The verdict worth carrying away is simple. Any AI visibility number that came from a vendor prompting an assistant is a rented measurement, and this week one of the landlords changed the locks. First-party reports are narrower, slower and duller, and they are the only ones nobody can withdraw from you.
Frequently asked questions
When did Semrush stop tracking Copilot?
9 November 2026. The notice to Enterprise AIO customers went out on 28 October.
Why did it stop?
Semrush cited changes to Microsoft Copilot's access requirements that prevent AI visibility platforms from collecting the data needed to track performance. It did not name the specific change.
Are other AI platforms affected?
Semrush says tracking across its other supported platforms is unaffected.
What should I do with old Copilot data?
Either return the prompts to your overall balance or keep the history while the prompts keep drawing on that balance. You cannot have both.
Can I still see Copilot citations for my site?
Yes, through Microsoft's own AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools, which is free and covers Copilot and Bing AI summaries.
Does this affect Google AI Overviews or ChatGPT tracking?
Not in Semrush, according to the notice. Those platforms continue to be tracked.
The discontinuation date, the 28 October notice, the access-requirement explanation, the two prompt-handling options and the statement that other platforms are unaffected verified in PPC Land's report of the Semrush notice and in Glenn Gabe's 29 October post. Microsoft's published Copilot terms, citation reporting and free availability of the AI Performance report cross-checked against accounts of Microsoft's February and October 2026 webmaster announcements, all read on 8 November 2026. Semrush did not name the specific Microsoft change.
Sources
- PPC Land: Semrush drops Copilot from AI visibility tracking on November 9: ppc.land/semrush-drops-copilot-from-ai-visibility-tracking-on-november-9. Used for: The 9 November discontinuation, the 28 October notice, the access-requirement explanation, the two prompt-handling options and the unaffected-platforms statement.
- Glenn Gabe on X, 29 October 2026: x.com/glenngabe/status/2115826758645608851. Used for: The public framing that AI visibility tools are facing their own tracking problems.
All sources are the vendor's own plan or documentation pages, checked on 27 October 2026. Plan terms change without notice, so confirm current limits before you rely on them.
