SharePoint's AI Era is Here

SharePoint has entered its AI era — and this is not just another feature release.

In this episode, I walk through what’s actually changed, based on what I’ve been testing myself. From the new SharePoint AI agent that can build lists and libraries from a simple description, to the newly announced Skills capability that lets you teach SharePoint how your organisation works — this is a shift in how the platform is used, not just how it looks.

I break down what the AI agent can do today, where it still has limitations, and why I think the real opportunity isn’t for beginners — it’s for people who already understand how SharePoint should be structured.

We also touch on the SharePoint Admin Agent and what it means for governance, visibility, and understanding your environment without relying on scripts and exports.

But the biggest takeaway is this: AI doesn’t replace structure. It depends on it.

If your content is messy, untagged, and sitting in the wrong place, Copilot won’t fix that for you. It will just scale the problem.

This episode is a practical, no-hype look at what’s here now, what’s coming, and what I’d focus on first if you want to make the most of it.

🔗 In this episode:

•  What the SharePoint AI agent can (and can’t) do right now 
•  How building lists and libraries is changing 
•  What SharePoint Skills are and why they matter 
•  The role of the SharePoint Admin Agent 
•  Why structure and metadata matter more than ever in the AI era 

📌 Resources & links

Full article and breakdown:
https://simplysharepoint.com/sharepoints-ai-era-is-here/ 

More tools, guides and templates:
https://hub.simplysharepoint.com/

Transcript

🎙️ SharePoint’s AI Era Is Here

Hello and welcome back to the Simply SharePoint podcast.

I’m your host, Liza Tinker — Microsoft MVP for SharePoint, and someone who’s been working with this platform for a very long time… long enough to have seen it in just about every state imaginable. And recently, apparently long enough to watch my own website have a bit of a moment.

More on that in a second.

If you’re new here — welcome. I’m really glad you found the show. This podcast is all about SharePoint and Microsoft 365 in plain English. No jargon, no corporate fluff, and no pretending everything works perfectly. Just real, practical insights from someone who’s spent years building, fixing, and figuring this platform out in real workplaces.

And if you’ve been here before — welcome back. I’ve missed you. And I owe you a bit of an explanation.

So… where have I been?

A few weeks ago, I put out some content that really connected with people — which was fantastic, genuinely, thank you — and then my website decided it had absolutely no interest in handling any of it.

It just… fell over.

Which is a very specific kind of frustration. You work hard, people show up, and then everything stops.

It felt a bit like getting a table at a great restaurant, sitting down, and then the kitchen shuts. Everyone’s there. Nothing’s coming out.

Anyway — it’s fixed now. The site is solid.

But while I was stuck not being able to publish anything, SharePoint didn’t exactly wait around. It just kept releasing things. Big updates. The kind you don’t want to sit on.

So this episode has been building for a few weeks.

And today — we’re finally getting into it.

What’s actually changed

Here’s what I want you to take away from this episode, and I’m going to say it right up front because I think it matters:

SharePoint has just had its most significant transformation in years — and I do not say that lightly.

I’ve been calling things “big updates” in SharePoint for over 20 years, so my bar for significant is reasonably high.

But what’s happened over the last few months is different. Microsoft hasn’t just added features — they’ve changed what the platform fundamentally does, and what it expects from the people using it.

There are two things I want to focus on today:

• The SharePoint AI agent, which I’ve been testing
• And SharePoint Skills, which were just announced

Let’s start with the agent.

The SharePoint AI agent

Microsoft has been rolling out something called AI in SharePoint — a natural language building experience where you describe what you want, and SharePoint builds it.

Now I know what some of you are thinking:

“Liza, I’ve heard this before. AI this, AI that. Show me something real.”

Fair.

So here’s what I actually did this week.

I needed to build a document library — full setup. Metadata columns, correct data types, views organised the way the team actually works.

Normally, that’s a couple of hours of clicking through settings, adding columns one by one, setting up views, fixing things you forgot… all of it.

Instead, I described what I wanted in plain English.

The agent asked a few clarifying questions — which I actually loved — and then it built it.

The whole thing. Columns. Data types. Views. Done.

I sat there waiting for the catch.

There wasn’t one.

I’ve also been building lists this way — describing structure, metadata, views — and watching SharePoint construct them programmatically.

What used to take hours is taking minutes.

And here’s the part I find most interesting — it doesn’t just generate something and dump it on you. It iterates. It proposes a plan. It tells you what it’s going to do before it does it.

You can refine it, push back, change direction.

It feels much more like working with someone than pressing a button.

Now — I want to be really clear about this.

In my testing, I was not able to create a new SharePoint site through natural language. I had to create the site first, then use the agent inside it.

That’s my experience.

Microsoft does have this on the roadmap, and it’s starting to roll out in preview. So depending on your tenant, you may see something different.

If you do — tell me. I genuinely want to know.

But inside an existing site? The agent is powerful.

Lists, libraries, pages — built through conversation.

And one more thing that I think is underrated:

You can convert existing Excel or Word tables directly into SharePoint lists. The agent maps the schema, infers column types — dates, currencies, people — and builds it.

Think about how many spreadsheets are acting as makeshift databases right now.

Project trackers. Asset registers. Request logs.

This turns them into proper, governed, Copilot-ready lists — without manual setup.

That’s a big deal.

What people are getting wrong

People are treating the AI agent as a shortcut for beginners.

And yes — it lowers the barrier.

But I actually think the bigger opportunity is for people who already understand SharePoint.

Because when you know what good structure looks like, and you can build it in minutes instead of hours, you become dramatically more productive.

The agent doesn’t replace expertise.

It accelerates it.

What it does replace is the tedious, repetitive, click-heavy work.

And I don’t think anyone is going to miss that.

SharePoint Skills

Now — SharePoint Skills.

This was announced just days ago at the Microsoft 365 Community Conference, and it’s rolling out to preview tenants now.

I haven’t fully tested it yet, but I’ve read everything about it — and I’m genuinely excited.

Skills let you teach SharePoint how your organisation works.

There are three parts:

What to Know
You define norms — naming conventions, standards, classifications — and SharePoint remembers them at the site level.

How to Act
You create repeatable processes — like playbooks. Finance reports, HR reviews — defined once, reused by anyone.

What to Produce
You generate outputs — documents, reports, dashboards — aligned to your organisation, not generic templates.

Now here’s the question I’m watching closely:

Could Skills replace simpler custom-built agents?

I don’t know yet.

But they’re site-based, reusable, governed, and built in natural language.

That overlaps with a lot of current use cases.

I’ll be testing this hard and reporting back.

The admin angle

Quick note for admins.

The SharePoint Admin Agent brings AI into the admin centre.

You can ask questions like:

• Who has access to what
• Where oversharing risks exist
• Which sites are inactive
• What your storage trends look like

Things that used to require scripts and exports can now be answered directly.

That’s a big shift.

What this really means

This is the part that matters.

Your SharePoint structure — metadata, libraries, columns — is now the data layer for AI.

Copilot is only as good as the content it works with.

If your environment is messy, it won’t fix that.

It will scale it.

The agent makes structure faster to build.

Skills help embed process.

But the foundation still matters.

Clean structure isn’t just tidiness anymore.

It’s the difference between AI that works — and AI that guesses.

What to do next

If you’re wondering where to start:

• Try the AI in SharePoint preview
• Use the agent to build something real
• Review your metadata
• Keep an eye on Skills

Outro

The full article for this episode is up on simplysharepoint.com.

If you’ve been testing the agent and your experience is different — especially around site creation — I’d love to hear from you.

Thank you for being here.

If this episode was useful, share it with someone who needs it.

And if you’ve been around for a while — thank you for sticking with me through the unexpected break.

The site is fixed. I’m back.

And SharePoint, as it turns out, didn’t slow down while I was gone.

Until next time — I’m Liza Tinker, this is Simply SharePoint, and I’ll talk to you soon.