5 Reasons Internal Communications Teams Should Focus on SharePoint in 2026

Key Takeaways

• AI and Copilot might be dominating the conversation, but SharePoint remains the foundation that helps employees find, access and engage with organisational knowledge.
• The organisations investing in strong employee experiences, high-quality content and modern intranets will see the greatest value from AI later down the line.
• Employee expectations for personalised, easy-to-find information continue to rise, making a well-designed SharePoint intranet more important than ever.
• SharePoint has evolved significantly in recent years and is far more than just a document repository or basic intranet platform.

If your organisation is investing in Copilot, AI agents or the wider Microsoft 365 employee experience, it might be tempting to focus all your attention on the shiny new technology.

But before you rush ahead, it’s worth taking a step back.

Strong foundations are more important than ever as AI comes into the picture. And for many organisations, that foundation is SharePoint.

We know SharePoint isn’t always the most exciting topic in internal communications. It doesn’t generate the same buzz as AI, and many have been burned with poor experiences of older versions of SharePoint. Yet the way employees find information, engage with content and interact with workplace technology increasingly depends on the content, pages and knowledge stored within SharePoint.

In short, AI doesn’t replace the need for a great intranet. It makes a great intranet even more important.

Here are five reasons why SharePoint should still be high on every internal communicator’s priority list in 2026.

1. Employees Have Less Time Than Ever

Publishing content has never been easier. Getting employees to actually engage with it is another story.

Employees are overwhelmed with information and have fewer moments available to actively seek out company news and updates.

People are juggling emails, Teams messages, meetings, videos, documents and now AI-generated content. As a result, attention is fragmented and finding time to actively browse an intranet is becoming increasingly rare.

Swoop Analytics’ 2026 SharePoint Intranet Benchmarking Report found that employees spend just 11.3 minutes per day on SharePoint. Even more telling, only 0.9 minutes is spent consuming news content, while visits that never progress beyond the homepage have doubled. Employee attention isn’t just limited, it’s becoming more superficial.

For internal communicators, that’s a challenge. If employees only have a few minutes to engage with your content, every second counts.

In 2026, successful internal communications is about cutting through the noise and making content easier to consume. Shorter articles. Stronger visual hierarchy. Clear calls to action. Personalised experiences that help employees quickly find what’s relevant to them.

Employees aren’t spending hours exploring your intranet. They’re snacking on information. The question is whether your content is easy for them to consume during those brief moments of attention.

Why SharePoint?

SharePoint and the wider Microsoft 365 ecosystem give internal communications teams more opportunities to match how employees actually behave today.

Audience targeting, personalised news, Viva Connections and flexible page layouts help different groups of employees see the information that’s most relevant to them, without having to search through pages of content.

Just as importantly, modern SharePoint makes it easier to structure content in a way that’s quick to scan and easy to navigate. When employees only have a few minutes to spare, helping them find the right information quickly can make the difference between engagement and indifference.

Whether employees are browsing the intranet directly or using AI-powered tools to surface information, the organisations delivering the best experiences are making content simpler, more targeted and easier to discover.

Real Life Example: Personalising News At Scale

 

Bauer Media Group faced exactly this challenge: how do you make relevant content easier to find when employees are overloaded with information, and short on time?

 

Working together, we reimagined the way news was delivered through SharePoint, creating a more personalised experience that helped employees surface the stories most relevant to them. Employees can now subscribe to the topics most relevant to them, whilst internal comms maintain control over key company-wide messaging.

 

The project was shortlisted for an Institute of Internal Communication (IoIC) Award, demonstrating how innovative use of SharePoint can help organisations create more engaging and effective employee experiences.

 

As employee attention becomes increasingly fragmented, personalisation is one of the most effective ways to ensure the right information reaches the right people at the right time.

2. Employees Expect More From Workplace Technology

As well as competing for employees’ time, your intranet is also competing to meet their expectations.

The same employee who spends less than a minute reading intranet news each day might spend hours using Netflix, Spotify, Amazon, TikTok or Instagram. They’re surrounded by digital experiences that are intuitive, personalised and designed to make finding content effortless.

Whether it’s Netflix recommending the next programme to watch, Spotify building a playlist around personal preferences or Amazon helping users find exactly what they need in seconds, people have become accustomed to technology that feels relevant, seamless and easy to use.

Those expectations don’t disappear when they log into work.

Employees expect workplace technology to be just as simple to navigate. They expect information to be easy to find. They expect content to feel relevant to them. And they expect systems to work together rather than forcing them to jump between disconnected platforms.

For internal communicators, this means the intranet experience matters more than ever.

It’s no longer enough for an intranet to simply look good. Equally, functionality alone isn’t enough. The most successful intranets combine great design with great user experience, helping employees quickly find what matters to them and complete tasks with minimal effort.

As employee attention becomes increasingly limited, usability becomes a critical part of engagement.

Why SharePoint?

One of SharePoint’s biggest strengths is that it sits at the centre of the Microsoft tools your employees are already using every day.

Rather than introducing another standalone platform, SharePoint connects naturally with Teams, Viva, Copilot and the wider Microsoft 365 ecosystem, creating a more seamless employee experience. Employees can move between communications, collaboration, communities and day-to-day work without feeling like they’re switching between completely different systems.

At the same time, SharePoint has evolved significantly in recent years. Modern design capabilities, improved branding options and richer page experiences mean today’s SharePoint intranets look very different to the versions many people still remember.

If your intranet still looks like it was designed in 2005, you’re probably missing an opportunity to engage employees and improve the overall employee experience.

And for organisations looking to go even further, tools like Silicon Reef’s Beacon make it possible to create a highly customised intranet that genuinely reflects your brand, culture and identity, while retaining all the benefits of the Microsoft 365 platform.

Today’s intranets don’t just need to look modern. They also need to deliver the kind of joined-up, intuitive experience employees increasingly expect from workplace technology.

3. Your Intranet Is Becoming the Front Door to Work

There was a time when the primary purpose of an intranet was to publish company news. Employees would visit, read the latest updates and leave.

That’s no longer enough.

Today’s employees expect to be able to complete tasks, access services, find information and connect with colleagues without jumping between multiple disconnected platforms. The best intranets don’t just tell employees what’s happening. They help them get things done.

An employee might want to catch up on company news, book annual leave, access a policy document, submit an IT request, find an expert, join a community discussion or discover a learning opportunity. They don’t want to be bounced between six different systems to do it.

The role of the intranet has evolved from a noticeboard to a gateway.

As organisations continue to invest in digital employee experience, creating a single destination where employees can work, connect and access services becomes increasingly important. News still plays a vital role. But it works best when it’s part of a wider employee experience rather than the sole reason employees visit.

Why SharePoint?

This is where SharePoint comes into its own.

Because SharePoint sits at the heart of Microsoft 365, it’s naturally positioned to connect the different systems, tools and experiences employees use every day. Whether employees are collaborating in Teams, receiving updates in Outlook, engaging with communities through Viva or interacting with business applications, SharePoint helps bring those experiences together.

Just as importantly, it can act as a bridge to other business-critical systems too. From HR and learning platforms to IT service management tools and employee services, organisations are increasingly looking for ways to create more seamless digital experiences.

If your intranet is still a collection of signposting pages that send employees somewhere else, it’s probably time for a rethink. Joined-up experiences where employees can read, find, access and take action from a single destination are the way forward in 2026.

4. AI Doesn’t Replace Your Intranet. It Makes It More Important.

It’s easy to look at Copilot, AI agents and the latest Microsoft announcements and assume the importance of the intranet is starting to fade. After all, if employees can simply ask a question and get an answer, do they still need to visit the intranet?

We’d argue the opposite.

It’s a message we’re sure you’ve heard a hundred times – AI is only as useful as the information it can access. Every policy page, leadership update, knowledge article, campaign hub and employee resource contributes to the answers employees receive. If important information is hard to find, out of date or scattered across multiple locations, AI can’t magically fix that.

That means it’s time to invest in the intranet, not abandon it. And for internal communicators, that’s good news.

The work you’ve always done, creating relevant content, improving discoverability and helping employees find trusted information, is becoming even more valuable. The only difference is that employees may no longer access that information in the same way.

Some employees will browse the intranet. Others will search. Increasingly, many will ask AI.

The goal remains the same: helping people quickly find the information they need.

Why SharePoint?

One of the reasons SharePoint remains so important is because it already sits at the heart of the Microsoft 365 experience.

It’s where many organisations store and share news, resources, guidance and organisational knowledge. It’s also deeply connected to the tools employees use every day, from Teams and Outlook to Viva and Copilot.

That means the effort you put into creating a better SharePoint experience doesn’t just improve the intranet itself. It helps improve how employees discover and interact with knowledge across the wider digital workplace.

In many ways, AI reinforces the case for investing in SharePoint. The better your content, the better the employee experience. The easier information is to find, the easier it becomes for employees to get answers. And the stronger your SharePoint foundation, the more value you’ll get from the tools building on top of it.

5. SharePoint Has Moved On. Have You?

For many internal communicators, SharePoint still carries some baggage. Mention it in a meeting and you’ll often hear stories about clunky interfaces, uninspiring designs and intranets that felt more like document repositories than employee experiences.

And to be fair, some of those criticisms were justified.

The problem is that many people’s view of SharePoint is frozen in time.

Over the last few years, Microsoft has invested heavily in SharePoint and the wider employee experience ecosystem. Now, the platform looks, feels and functions very differently to the SharePoint many people remember. Yet we still meet organisations that are judging modern SharePoint based on an intranet launched five or ten years ago.

That’s a bit like dismissing Netflix because you had a bad Blockbuster experience.

The reality is that modern SharePoint can support personalised content experiences, employee services, community engagement, business processes, AI-powered knowledge discovery and seamless integrations across the digital workplace.

If your perception of SharePoint is based on what it looked like five years ago, it might be time for a second look.