For years, most intranets have survived on a quiet agreement. They weren’t perfect, but they worked well enough. Employees learned where to click and departments had their own workarounds for imperfect processes. If something was hard to find, someone usually knew who to ask.

In 2026, this is no longer enough. 

Not because intranets have suddenly become worse – but because the expectations around them have fundamentally changed. AI integration, and fresh digital workplace trends are converging to reveal every weakness in legacy intranet strategy. And this shift is exposing every decision that was delayed or quietly avoided along the way.

The intranet has lived in the gap between IT and Comms

Most intranets didn’t end up in their current state because of bad intent or a lack of capability. They ended up there because they lived in the space between the two teams.

Historically, IT and Comms have been concerned about very different risks. IT teams focused on stability, security and compliance. Their job was to keep platforms resilient, reduce support overhead and avoid unnecessary complexity. Locking things down and limiting sprawl were sensible, responsible decisions.

Comms teams focused on reach, engagement and narrative. Their priority was getting messages out, running campaigns, and keeping employees informed. Content hygiene and structure wasn’t perfect.

Both approaches were rational. Both were necessary. And together, they created a blind spot.

Because while IT assumed Comms ‘owned the experience’, and Comms assumed IT ‘owned the platform’, no one truly owned the breadth and depth of content that sat between; where business teams generated sites and materials.

Nowhere to hide AI-powered experiences don’t politely work around weak foundations, it surfaces them. Poor content hygiene is amplified when intelligent tools surface outdated, duplicated or contradictory information.Employees quickly lose trust.

That’s why 2026 feels exposing; it doesn’t just reveal old skeletons in the closet, it puts them on full display.

Most intranets were built for a different era – one where static publishing was acceptable, expectations were lower and ‘launching’ an intranet was treated as the finish line. Search for many years now has surfaced the most recent or accessed content, so older duplicate content was buried. AI considers old and new content on a topic, reasoning between the various sources and formulating an answer.

The ownership question

What it forces organisations to confront is whether they’re ready to move from shared interest to shared accountability. A modern digital workplace can’t be governed through goodwill alone. It needs clear answers to questions that can no longer sit in the gaps:

·      Who owns the experience beyond launch?

·      Who is accountable for the content quality and retirement?

·      Who owns findability, not just search configuration?

·      Who carries responsibility when AI surfaces the wrong answer?

How SharePoint’s 2026 capabilities can help

SharePoint has risen to the occasion to meet the demands of this more mature operating model.

AI combined with automation can now assist Comms and IT teams to tackle long-standing issues like content rot and duplication without placing unrealistic demands on already stretched teams. Capabilities such as automated content review support ownership, helping teams maintain quality standards and accuracy consistently rather than relying on manual effort.

Automate Governance and Cleanup with Knowledge Agent

If you use SharePoint and your intranet has suffered from poor governance – think content sprawl, broken links, and outdated pages – the Knowledge Agent is a game-changer. This Copilot feature lets you automate content governance tasks. It can detect dead links, flag or even archive out-of-date content, and prompt content owners to review material, all without requiring a large team to manually police the intranet.

This directly addresses years of underinvestment in governance without requiring proactive business behaviour.

Empower Content Creators with Microsoft Researcher

Microsoft Researcher is a new tool aimed at making life easier for your content creators (e.g. your internal comms team, knowledge managers, or anyone tasked with writing on the intranet). Researcher helps streamline the process of gathering credible sources from across Microsoft 365 from sources as diverse as your inbox to recorded Microsoft Teams calls.

The benefit is twofold: it saves time (so a lean team can produce content faster), and it improves quality, because content is built on a foundation of verified, organisation-specific information.

SAM

SharePoint Advanced Management now allows for site attestation, or periodic site reviews. Platform owners can schedule messages where site or group owners must confirm that access and sharing settings are still correct.

Practical next step

If you find yourself cringing as you recognise some of the weak points outlined in his blog , don’t despair – you’re certainly not alone, and it’s fixable.

Ready to transform your intranet and tackle those legacy challenges head-on? Our digital workplace experts are offering you a 30-minute complimentary intranet audit where you’ll get tailored insights to help you unlock a smarter, more engaging digital workplace in 2026. Make this the year your intranet becomes a true asset for every employee.