SharePoint celebrates its 25th birthday in 2026 — and Microsoft is using Microsoft Build 2026 to roll out the biggest AI wave ever pushed into the platform. Since 2001, SharePoint has grown from a simple document management tool into the central collaboration and intranet platform for millions of organisations worldwide. For the anniversary, natural language commands, generative AI, and redesigned interfaces are being built deep into the platform's core.

What was announced at Build 2026

Microsoft presented a series of new SharePoint capabilities at Build 2026 (May 2026) that will roll out gradually across Microsoft 365 in the coming months. The theme: AI takes over the work that previously required hours of manual configuration.

AI-powered site building: describe instead of configure

The most striking new capability is AI-powered site building. Until now, creating a SharePoint intranet page or team site required significant expertise: page structure, navigation design, page templates, web parts. Now a simple description in natural language is enough.

Administrators and power users simply describe what they need — for example: «Create an HR department intranet page with a news overview, a document section for HR policies, and a quick-links section for internal tools» — and SharePoint automatically generates a complete page structure with appropriate web parts, layout, and placeholder content.

What this means for Swiss organisations:

• New intranet sections take minutes instead of days
• Employees without SharePoint expertise can set up sites independently
• The AI automatically suggests appropriate layouts for common business scenarios (department site, project site, knowledge management, QMS pages)
• General Availability is planned for autumn 2026; previews are already available for Microsoft 365 tenants on Targeted Release

For organisations looking to expand their SharePoint intranet structure or quality management system, this significantly reduces implementation time.

AI Workflows in lists and libraries

AI Workflows are one of the most practically significant steps for everyday work: Microsoft is integrating Copilot-powered automation flows directly into SharePoint lists and document libraries — without users needing to open Power Automate.

Concretely: a new «Automate» entry point appears on lists and libraries, where pre-built and AI-generated workflows can be triggered. Examples:

• Document uploaded → AI categorises it, sets metadata, and routes it to the relevant approver
• New list entries → automatic summary and Teams-message notification
• Contract expiry tracking → AI reads the expiry date from the document, creates reminder tasks
• QMS workflows → checks whether an uploaded document follows the naming convention and automatically files it in the correct subfolder

AI Workflows are built on the existing Power Automate backend but are accessible via a simplified interface embedded in SharePoint, removing the barrier of building flows in a separate tool.

Availability: Public Preview for selected Microsoft 365 tenants from Q3 2026; General Availability expected in early 2027.

New document library UX

Microsoft is giving document libraries their first major UX overhaul in years. Key changes:

• Adaptive layout: The library detects whether users primarily work with documents or with metadata and automatically adjusts the default view (list view vs card view vs compact view)
• Inline metadata editing: Columns can be edited directly in the list view without opening a side panel
• AI-powered in-library search: Instead of classic filters, users can ask for documents in natural language («Show me all contracts from last quarter that have not been approved yet»)
• Improved thumbnail preview: Direct preview for Office documents, PDFs, and images without opening them
• Accessibility: WCAG 2.2 AA compliance for all library elements

The new UX will roll out as the default for all Microsoft 365 tenants from August 2026; the classic view will remain optionally available until the end of 2026.

Autofill Columns: AI fills in metadata automatically

Autofill Columns are one of the most useful innovations for knowledge management and document management: a column in a SharePoint library is marked as «Autofill» — SharePoint then automatically analyses the document content and populates the column on upload.

Practical examples:

• Column «Contract party» → AI reads the company name from the document
• Column «Document type» → AI classifies: quote, invoice, minutes, policy
• Column «Topic» → AI generates a topic tag from the content
• Column «Summary» → AI writes a 2–3 sentence summary

Licensing and availability:

Autofill Columns are tied to Microsoft 365 Copilot licences (CHF 30/user/month). For tenants without Copilot licences, simpler rule-based autofill features (e.g. from filenames) are available at no additional cost. The feature has been in preview as part of SharePoint Premium (formerly Syntex) and is being integrated into the standard library UX as part of the Build 2026 rollout.

For Swiss organisations with strict metadata requirements — healthcare, law firms, financial services — this represents a significant productivity gain when ingesting documents.

SharePoint Alerts are being retired: action required by July 2026

One of the most operationally important topics for existing SharePoint users: classic SharePoint Alerts (notifications) are being retired. Microsoft has announced that the classic alert system — which has existed since SharePoint 2001 and notifies users by email of list changes — will be switched off in July 2026 in Microsoft 365 (SharePoint Online).

What replaces SharePoint Alerts?

Microsoft recommends two modern alternatives:

1. 1SharePoint Rules: Built into lists and libraries, with no Power Automate required. Simple rules such as «Notify me when a document is uploaded to folder X» or «Send email to approver when status is set to Ready». For simple scenarios, this is the direct replacement.

1. 1Power Automate Flows: For more complex scenarios — multiple recipients, conditional logic, Teams notifications, external systems. Microsoft provides a migration assistant that automatically converts existing alerts into Power Automate flows.

Action required for Swiss organisations:

• Inventory all existing SharePoint Alerts in the tenant (Admin Center → SharePoint → Reports)
• Migrate simple alerts to SharePoint Rules by the end of June 2026
• Rebuild complex alerts (multiple recipients, conditional logic) with Power Automate
• Train users: the new «Notify» function via Rules

CNEXT recommends not delaying the alert migration — alerts still active on 1 July 2026 will simply be switched off without any warning to end users.

SPFx React 18: modern development standard

For development teams building custom SharePoint Framework (SPFx) solutions: Microsoft has officially announced SPFx with React 18 support. Until now, SPFx was limited to React 17, which prevented the use of modern React features (Concurrent Mode, Suspense, Server Components).

With React 18 in SPFx, developers can:

• Use useTransition and useDeferredValue for better UI responsiveness
• Use Strict Mode without double-render issues
• Use new lifecycle models for asynchronous data loading

The update is backwards-compatible; existing SPFx solutions do not need to be migrated immediately but will benefit from performance improvements after upgrading.

Swiss organisations: what to do now

The Build 2026 announcements create concrete action items:

For organisations that operate a professional SharePoint intranet, now is a good time to review your SharePoint governance: which alerts are active? Which processes would benefit from AI Workflows? Where is manual metadata entry consuming time that Autofill Columns could save?

Conclusion: 25 years of SharePoint — and the best time to invest

SharePoint is 25 years old and evolving faster than ever. The Build 2026 wave does not bring marginal updates — it fundamentally changes how sites are created, documents are managed, and processes are automated. At the same time, the retirement of classic Alerts creates immediate action requirements.

As a Swiss Microsoft Partner with a SharePoint focus, CNEXT supports organisations in evaluating and implementing the new AI capabilities — from Alert migration and Autofill Columns configuration to AI-powered intranet modernisation.