Eight SharePoint intranet trends for 2026
- John Scott
It’s been a busy 2025 for Lightspeed365 and Content Formula. We’ve been helping clients launch great new SharePoint intranets and also adding new features to Lightspeed365 that enhance and improve your intranet. It’s also that time of year when we start to think ahead and plan for what looks like it will be an even busier 2026.
If you’re planning a new intranet for 2026 or you’re looking at improving what you already have – for example increasing the adoption of your SharePoint intranet – it is important to consider some of the wider intranet trends with that are likely to occur. These can provide valuable context to inform your project.
So, the Lightspeed365 team have got their heads together to consider some of the key SharePoint intranet themes that we think we’ll see in the coming year. Of course, making predictions is always a bit a risk – we could be completely wrong! But here’s our view of eight SharePoint intranet trends we’re likely to see in 2026.
1. Intranets assume more importance as “one source of truth”
Successful intranets establish themselves as the “one source of truth” with authoritative, up-to date and official content that is trusted by employees. Intranets that have overlapping, expired, confusing and erroneous content tend to suffer with poor adoption. We think that in 2026 intranets have a unique opportunity to establish and differentiate themselves as the one source of truth, driving both adoption and value.
The combination of AI-generated “slop”, AI hallucinations, and myriads of different repositories and applications across the enterprise, means that the role of a reliable and trusted source of information will be valued more and more, both by employee and stakeholders across the enterprise. Everyone wants one place where they can get reliable information quickly and easily. Intranets that can position themselves the “one source of truth” will succeed in the coming year.
2. Content governance on the intranet takes on extra importance in the age of AI
The introduction of generative AI has the potential to supercharge productivity, but at the moment many organisations are still trying to establish ROI. Indeed, recent research from MIT suggests 95% of AI projects fail to generate the expected value. One of the reasons that AI fails to deliver is that there isn’t reliable content for it to generate meaningful answers or output – that old rule of “garbage in, garbage out” (sometimes expressed in stronger terms!) applies.
Having content governance in place is essential for maintaining reliable content – and is an essential ingredient for the success of any generative AI, chatbot or Microsoft Copilot project. Successful intranets already have robust content governance applied, and there is now an opportunity for that content to play a foundational role in AI success. In 2026 the content governance processes in place on your SharePoint intranet such as clear content ownership, automated reviews, and more will be extremely important – and an example of the value of the intranet in the age of AI.
3. AI agents start to impact intranet management and features
One of the big digital workplace themes of 2026 will be the rise of AI agents, which help to automate or partly automate different sets of tasks. Some AI capabilities that aren’t strictly agents are also being rebranded as agents.
The age of agentic AI is already being reflected in SharePoint and Microsoft 365. For example, the SharePoint knowledge agent helps to optimise content in a number of different ways, including helping get it ready for Copilot by generating appropriate metadata, fixing broken links and more. Microsoft have also announced the launch of Agent 365, a place to manage, control and orchestrate AI agents, both within Microsoft applications and third-party solutions too.
We suspect that AI agents will increasingly have an influence on intranet managers as well as content owners by improving content, helping optimise it for search, automating some content creation such as summaries, and more. We believe 2026 will be the year AI agents do some heavy lifting to ease the burden on busy intranet teams.
4. User search behaviour moves towards natural language queries and AI-powered answers
Strong findability is at the heart of a successful intranet; search and navigation continue to be critical intranet features. Intranet search has always been heavily influenced by employee experiences of searching the internet as consumers. “Why doesn’t intranet search work more like Google” is a sentiment continually expressed in user research, with employee expectations and search behaviour based on their interactions with the major search engines.
Currently internet search behaviour is changing dramatically. More people are using ChatGPT and other LLM-powered services to bypass traditional search results and find information and answers that is generated by AI. On 2026 we can expect this to influence employee expectations of intranet search with more use of chatbot interfaces, natural language terms, demand for AI-generated summaries and more. Intranet teams need to start thinking about how search may evolve accordingly in their SharePoint intranet – for example how Copilot is being used as a search tool and how it interfaces with the intranet.
5. Hyper-personalisation and subscription prove essential for intranet adoption
As well as influencing intranet search, experiences in the consumer space have also influenced the need to have robust and highly granular personalisation, content targeting and subscription features within intranets. Today mobile apps, websites, social media, AI services, and other digital channels offer highly personalised and configurable experiences. As a result, customers expect a personalised experience: as far back as 2021, McKinsey research suggests that 71% of customers expect personalisation from brands and over three quarters get frustrated when it isn’t offered.
Of course, personalisation, the ability to target content and experiences, and the ability to subscribe to news, have always been intranet features, but they have often been used only sparingly. But personalisation isn’t going away and the rise of AI means that more brands will be offering hyper-personalisation in the consumer world.
SharePoint supports some personalisation but does not do it well, and it is one of the areas where Lightspeed365 features step up to fill SharePoint’s gaps – for example, a friendly “welcome bar” with a personalised message and locally relevant information, a personalised app launcher, and news subscriptions. All these feature s have proved popular with Lightpeed365 customers, and we think will continue to be important in 2026.
6. Intranet platforms increasingly support true omnichannel publishing
Many internal communicators have an ambition to deliver omnichannel or multichannel communications; this involves coordinating messaging and stories across different channels to maximise impact with different audiences and groups. But it is tricky – especially as there are so many channels in organisations – intranet, email, mobile app, Teams (or equivalent), Viva Engage, SMS and even face-to-face.
In the past two years more and more intranet solutions have started to facilitate omnichannel communications with tools that allow teams to coordinate their messages – for example with more flexible notifications. Microsoft has also released Viva Amplify, although this comes at a cost and is out of reach for some internal comms professionals.
In 2026 we think that the ability to better coordinate communications and notifications will become an expectation for intranet software, ensuring that the intranet remains the main digital communication channel, but that messages can also be received wherever employees happen to be working. For example, Lightspeed365’s feature to enable push notifications from the intranet to the Teams mobile app, has proved to be an essential way to coordinate key messaging to both deskbound knowledge workers and frontline staff who access the intranet on a mobile device.
7. Competition within the intranet market keeps on improving intranet products
There’s sometimes been an erroneous assumption that intranets are an anachronism and an outdated technology – a platform that is always on the edge of being replaced. That’s always been wrong and thirty years later intranets are still going strong. In fact, the intranet software market is in good health. Intranet products are evolving with AI features and investors are backing intranet software providers. All this means the intranet software market is a hot space with lots of competition, investment in improving the products and even some mergers.
In 2026 this is going to continue as every intranet provider tries to jostle to improve their market share. This is great news for intranet teams who will see more choice and better software. It’s also keeping us on our toes! We continue to invest in Lightspeed365 and will deliver a continual pipeline of additional features in 2026, including:
- better ways to present videos as part of a news feed
- new ways to integrate user-generated content into SharePoint intranets
- a new event management feature
- and much more through the year.
Competition in the intranet software market has also led to the development of different options for all levels of budget. Here at Lightspeed365 we offer a product that does not replicate any SharePoint features – we just focus on what you need to deliver a world-class SharePoint intranet. This means Lightspeed365 comes at a reduced price and offers real value for money.
As we go through 2026, expect to see intranet products (including from our competitors) continue to improve, offer value for money, and provide real choice.
8. Despite investment in Microsoft 365, SharePoint alone still doesn’t cut it as an intranet
One of the reasons that organisations choose to invest in Microsoft 365 and SharePoint is the continual evolution of the platform. In recent years we’ve seen waves of innovation around employee experience, generative AI and currently AI agents.
Over the years SharePoint and also the Microsoft Viva set of tools have evolved to better support the core needs of intranets and also internal communicators. But – and perhaps surprisingly – SharePoint still does not support a world class intranet or employee experience platform straight out of the box. Despite the current exciting innovation path, there was nothing announced at the recent Microsoft Ignite event that means this will be any different in 2026.
With SharePoint’s limitations, intranet products like Lightspeed365 have evolved to fill the gaps with a set of web parts and features that complement SharePoint to deliver what you need for a word class intranet. We know that Lightspeed 365 will continue to elevate SharePoint intranets in 2026.
Planning your intranet for 2026
We hope you found our predictions useful to help you consider your plans for 2026. You may also find our intranet health check useful, which provides personalised insights based on a confidential, 15-minute self-assessment survey about your intranet.
And of course, whatever you do plan for 2026, all the Lightspeed365 and Content Formula team wish you a very merry Christmas and holiday season, as well as a happy and prosperous new year.
Frequently asked questions
What are some of the intranet trends for 2026?
Major intranet trends for 2026 include improved intranet products through competition in the intranet software market, an increased demand for personalisation, and also support for omnichannel publishing. However, most of the trends will be down to AI with the introduction of AI agents to help manage intranets, a demand for AI-powered intranet search, and reliable intranet content playing a role in supporting AI projects.
Are intranets still needed with the introduction of AI?
Yes, more than ever! For AI projects to succeed they need reliable, up to date and authoritative content so AI output is useful, accurate and trusted. Intranets excel at being the “one source of truth” so are essential to the success of AI. Intranets also still help employees to stay informed and get things done, as well as nurturing connection, community and culture.
