Generative Answers for Healthcare Agent service does not work any more because CustomSearch is deprecated

Question

Generative Answers for Healthcare Agent service does not work any more because CustomSearch is deprecated

Matthew 0

Hi,

I am attempting to follow the instructions contained on the website: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/health-bot/quickstart-generative-answers-on-your-public-data to set up 'Generative Answers on your Public Data' for the Healthcare Agent service (Health Bot). It requires use of Bing CustomSearch. However, when I go to the Bing CustomSearch.ai website (https://www.customsearch.ai/), it says that this product is deprecated and can no longer be configured. Therefore it is now impossible to follow the instructions to set up the 'Generative Answers on your Public Data' for the Health Bot.

It seems that Microsoft must update the Health Bot and the instructions for Generative Answers on your Public Data so that it no longer relies on Bing CustomSearch.

Has anyone managed to set up Generative Answers on your Public Data for a Health Bot without Bing CustomSearch?

Manas Mohanty 8,150 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-07-21T08:07:45.7033333+00:00

Hi Matthew Danish

I agree with Amira Bedhiafi on using Grounding with Bing search as an alternative as custom Bing search is depreciated.

Currently, you can leverage "Grounding with Bing search" as knowledge resource to Azure AI foundry agent.

Work flow is to

Step 1

Create a Grounding with Bing search

Step 2

Create a Model deployment from Azure OpenAI service from Models +endpoint

Supported models and regions for Agents

Step 3

Create an Agent

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/educatordeveloperblog/step-by-step-tutorial-building-an-ai-agent-using-azure-ai-foundry/4386122

Step 4

Go to knowledges section of Agent and create a connection with "Grounding with Bing search" resource.

Attached relevant document for reference to help you with

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ai-foundry/agents/how-to/tools/bing-grounding

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/azure-ai-services-blog/getting-results-with-ai-agents--bing-grounding/4401115

Hope it helps.

Thank you
Manas Mohanty 8,150 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-07-23T03:02:32.5866667+00:00

Hi Matthew Danish

Checking to see if the pointer on using "grounding with Bing search" with Agent helped address your requirement.

Thank you
Manas Mohanty 8,150 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-07-24T10:59:40.19+00:00

Hi Matthew Danish

We could not hear from you. Hope you found the pointers useful.

Thank you
Matthew 0 Reputation points

2025-07-25T09:07:27.9833333+00:00

Sorry, I was not able to create the Bing Grounding Custom Search resource. I get an error message that says that 'The subscription is not eligible for the selected SKU G2'.
Manas Mohanty 8,150 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-07-25T09:34:55.5733333+00:00

Hello Matthew

The "SkuNotEligible" error when creating a Grounding with Bing Search or custom search resource in Azure is typically due to subscription restrictions.

Grounding with Bing Search is only available in Paid or Pay-as-you-go Azure subscriptions. It is not supported for Sponsored or credit-based subscriptions.

Reference

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/2240906/create-a-grounding-with-bing-search-resource-subsc

Thank you
Matthew 0 Reputation points

2025-07-25T11:58:25.1733333+00:00

That's a bit frustrating when trying to test features for a potential Azure OpenAI client.

1 answer

Your answer

Manas Mohanty 8,150 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-07-21T08:07:45.7033333+00:00

Hi Matthew Danish

I agree with Amira Bedhiafi on using Grounding with Bing search as an alternative as custom Bing search is depreciated.

Currently, you can leverage "Grounding with Bing search" as knowledge resource to Azure AI foundry agent.

Work flow is to

Step 1

Create a Grounding with Bing search

Step 2

Create a Model deployment from Azure OpenAI service from Models +endpoint

Supported models and regions for Agents

Step 3

Create an Agent

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/educatordeveloperblog/step-by-step-tutorial-building-an-ai-agent-using-azure-ai-foundry/4386122

Step 4

Go to knowledges section of Agent and create a connection with "Grounding with Bing search" resource.

Attached relevant document for reference to help you with

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ai-foundry/agents/how-to/tools/bing-grounding

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/azure-ai-services-blog/getting-results-with-ai-agents--bing-grounding/4401115

Hope it helps.

Thank you
Manas Mohanty 8,150 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-07-23T03:02:32.5866667+00:00

Hi Matthew Danish

Checking to see if the pointer on using "grounding with Bing search" with Agent helped address your requirement.

Thank you
Manas Mohanty 8,150 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-07-24T10:59:40.19+00:00

Hi Matthew Danish

We could not hear from you. Hope you found the pointers useful.

Thank you
Matthew 0 Reputation points

2025-07-25T09:07:27.9833333+00:00

Sorry, I was not able to create the Bing Grounding Custom Search resource. I get an error message that says that 'The subscription is not eligible for the selected SKU G2'.
Manas Mohanty 8,150 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-07-25T09:34:55.5733333+00:00

Hello Matthew

The "SkuNotEligible" error when creating a Grounding with Bing Search or custom search resource in Azure is typically due to subscription restrictions.

Grounding with Bing Search is only available in Paid or Pay-as-you-go Azure subscriptions. It is not supported for Sponsored or credit-based subscriptions.

Reference

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/2240906/create-a-grounding-with-bing-search-resource-subsc

Thank you
Matthew 0 Reputation points

2025-07-25T11:58:25.1733333+00:00

That's a bit frustrating when trying to test features for a potential Azure OpenAI client.

Answer 1

Hello Matthew !

Thank you for posting on Microsoft Learn.

You’re running into a real gap between the Health-Bot docs and the current reality of Microsoft’s search stack:

What the quick-start still saysWhat’s actually true today“Create a Bing Custom Search instance and paste the Configuration ID.”Bing Custom Search is deprecated – new instances can’t be created, and all Bing Search APIs (including Custom Search) will be retired 11 Aug 2025“Create a Bing Custom Search instance and paste the Configuration ID.”Bing Custom Search is deprecated – new instances can’t be created, and all Bing Search APIs (including Custom Search) will be retired 11 Aug 2025Microsoft already published a replacement quick-start that swaps Custom Search for Azure AI Search with vector search. The flow is:

Crawl or collect the pages you care about

If it’s your own public site, the quickest path is simply: Azure portal → AI Search → “Add your data” → “From URL” (preview) or upload a zipped site dump / sitemap.
For multiple domains or more control, schedule a Logic App or Azure Data Factory pipeline to push HTML/markdown/PDF into Blob Storage, then index from there.
Enable vectorization in the index wizard (Azure OpenAI “text-embedding-3-small” works fine for most health content).
In the Health-Bot portal import the “Generative Answers on Your Sources” template, filling in: Search endpoint, admin key, and index name, your Azure OpenAI deployment details and a short “Instruction title” such as “Hospital Website FAQ”
Publish. The “Generative Answers on Customer Sources” node will now ground the LLM on whatever your Search index returns, no Custom Search needed.

When this path makes sense ?

Your “public data” really means your domains (brochures, policies, formularies...).

You need fine-grained control over what is or isn’t surfaced for compliance.

Another option is Microsoft successor to Custom Search is a managed tool called Grounding with Bing Search, available inside the new Azure AI Agent Service. Key points:

Resource type: Microsoft.AI/groundingBingSearch.

Scope: open web (no per-site white-list).

Security: calls leave the Azure compliance boundary; evaluate whether that’s acceptable for your scenario.

How to bridge it into Health-Bot today ?

The Health-Bot portal doesn’t yet expose “Grounding with Bing Search” as a first-class data connection, but you can:

Create an Azure AI Agent with a Bing Grounding tool.

Expose the agent through HTTPS (or via an Azure Function proxy).

Call that endpoint from a Custom-Code node or a lightweight plugin inside your Health-Bot scenario.

This is more plumbing than the old template, but it preserves real-time public-web answers without you hosting a crawler.

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Generative Answers for Healthcare Agent service does not work any more because CustomSearch is deprecated

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