MVP Collective Launches In-Depth Guide on SharePoint Content AI
MVP and Regional Director Gokan Ozcifci, together with eight fellow Microsoft MVPs, has co-authored SharePoint Content AI, Solutions and Advanced Administration - a new book that delves into the intersection of artificial intelligence and SharePoint. We spoke with the authors to learn more about their collaboration, what inspired the project, and the key themes they explore. What inspired you to collaborate on this eBook, and how did the idea for focusing on AI and SharePoint come about? Gokan Ozcifci, Belgium: The inspiration behind this book stems from observing how rapidly AI is transforming the way organizations manage content, particularly within Microsoft 365 and SharePoint. As this transformation accelerated, I noticed a growing gap: many industry experts, digital transformation directors, and business leaders were eager to embrace these AI-driven tools but found it difficult to understand how capabilities like Autofill, AI-powered metadata, OCR, or governance solutions translate into real-world value. That’s when a group of SharePoint enthusiasts, MVPs, consultants, and practice owners joined forces with a shared goal—to bridge that gap. We set out to create more than just a technical guide. We aimed to build a resource grounded in practical experience, offering clear explanations and actionable insights for those navigating the evolving world of Content AI. SharePoint naturally became our focal point due to its central role in enterprise content management and its rapid evolution in tandem with Microsoft’s AI strategy. Our goal was to demystify the technology, understand the requirements, translate the needs, and show how AI can empower organizations to manage content more intelligently, securely, and efficiently. Can you share a real-world example where AI significantly enhanced SharePoint content management or administration? Frane Borozan – MVP, Croatia: A global enterprise had a use case to classify thousands of legacy contracts in SharePoint. SharePoint content AI extracts metadata, such as expiration dates, the names of signatories, and the validity period of the contract, as well as similar information that is available within the contract. This cut manual effort by almost 90% to hire the workforce to review all these legacy contracts. Noorez Khamis – MVP, Canada: For one client they previously had 5–10 interns manually logging into 20 banking websites each month to download client statements, upload them to SharePoint, tag metadata, and update Salesforce—an inefficient and error-prone process. Now, an automated solution using Power Automate Desktop Flows handles document retrieval, Syntex extracts key metadata, and a validation Power App ensures data accuracy before integrating with Salesforce for approvals and updates. This end-to-end system eliminates manual effort, increases accuracy, and streamlines document processing across platforms. Drew Madelung – MVP, USA: As an M365 consultant, I work with multiple customers and write unique and complex statements of work. I actively utilize SharePoint Content AI features, such as autofill columns, to help summarize and provide key metadata from statements of work, enabling me to discover details from prior and existing projects where overlap is likely to occur. Mike Maadarani – MVP, Canada: AI was deployed at a university to manage their application admissions process. The Content AI significantly improved the classification and extraction of information from various application formats. This process reduced manual work by over 98%, resulting in substantial savings and a high return on investment for the client. Antonio Maio – MVP, Canada: I had a client who greatly benefited from Content AI models in SharePoint Online. They’re a corporate real estate firm that utilizes Content AI models to process lease agreements and rental contracts, automatically extracting key metadata values from these content types. This metadata automatically populates columns in SharePoint libraries, which then drives business process automation and retention policies for those documents. This all happens by users simply uploading new documents into SharePoint libraries. How do you see the role of AI evolving in the SharePoint ecosystem over the next few years? Frane Borozan – MVP, Croatia: SharePoint, as the content management platform, doesn't have a future without the help of AI. Use cases are varied, ranging from extracting metadata from content to helping create new content. I believe that with the help of AI, the possibilities of SharePoint are unlimited. Noorez Khamis – MVP, Canada: Copilot is making SharePoint the go-to content management system by transforming how you discover, create, and interact with content. You can now ask for what you need, generate pages from your existing documents, and get personalized answers through AI-powered SharePoint Agents. With more intelligent automation, beautiful intranet design, and fewer clicks, SharePoint feels more like an intelligent assistant than a static site. Vlad Catrinescu – MVP, Canada: AI will continue transforming how we work, and SharePoint is no exception. Today, we’re already seeing AI help fill in metadata for document libraries. But imagine if AI could go further: automatically suggest and create the right columns, build content types based on the documents you upload, or even configure web parts through natural language prompts. SharePoint has always been a powerful platform, but it hasn’t always been the easiest to use. AI has the potential to make that power more accessible to every user, not just the experts. Drew Madelung – MVP, USA: I would like to see SharePoint Content AI evolve in a way that identifies opportunities for AI using existing content that automatically configures it without user intervention to improve discoverability. The ability to configure and work with these AI features should have a minimal learning curve and be integrated seamlessly, without requiring specialized technical skills. Mike Maadarani – MVP, Canada: As artificial intelligence continues to advance, it is anticipated that content management will become fully automated, reducing the need for administrators to establish and enforce rules. AI algorithms will be significantly more sophisticated, enhancing their ability to comprehend an organization's policies, the nature of the content being added, and the necessary actions required by the rules. Antonio Maio – MVP, Canada: I think auto-fill columns will have a significant impact on SharePoint Online. Metadata is a core element of good information management, but we know that users don’t want to fill in metadata. They’re busy and often move too quickly from task to task, leaving little time to provide a wealth of metadata elements. SharePoint’s auto-fill columns offer an easy way for us to automatically extract metadata, based on a prompt that’s supplied to the column. Joanne Klein – MVP, Canada: As a security and compliance professional, I observe the evolution of AI data governance, which aims to control the proliferation, access, and lifecycle of AI solutions across SharePoint within the enterprise. We need to elevate AI to be a core pillar within an organization's holistic data governance strategy. What advice would you give to SharePoint professionals who are just beginning to explore AI-powered capabilities? Frane Borozan – MVP, Croatia: If you're starting with AI in SharePoint, taxonomy tagging is a perfect first step. It shows how AI can reduce manual effort and bring structure to your content. Set up a managed metadata column linked to your term store and let AI handle tagging based on document content. It’s a simple way to improve search, consistency, and governance—without heavy customization. Start here, learn the basics, and expand as you go. Noorez Khamis – MVP, Canada: Start with the basics and learn how to prompt effectively while using the full Microsoft 365 Copilot capabilities across all the workplace tools you use every day, such as Teams, SharePoint, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. Take the time to revise your prompts and use templates that have been proven to work, saving you time, streamlining tasks, and boosting productivity. In SharePoint specifically, explore how to create pages, rewrite content, and use AI-powered SharePoint agents. Vlad Catrinescu – MVP, Canada: Get hands-on as early as possible. Theory is great, but real understanding comes from testing in your environment. Set up a lab, start small, and explore practical use cases where AI can help automate or enhance existing processes. With the Pay-As-You-Go model, there’s no upfront cost—you only pay for what you use. That said, I highly recommend setting a budget cap in Azure to avoid surprises. Drew Madelung – MVP, USA: SharePoint remains essentially unchanged in many ways, and it is still essential to understand the concepts of content types, columns, and permission hierarchies to implement advanced AI solutions against your organization's content effectively. Mike Maadarani – MVP, Canada: IT professionals must stay current with evolving technologies, particularly in the rapidly changing field of AI. With the emergence of AI agents, I recommend acquiring skills in creating, managing, and deploying agents within Microsoft 365 to enhance the integration and utilization of AI in their organizations. Antonio Maio – MVP, Canada: Be curious about AI - play with the AI technology that’s built into SharePoint; experiment with it to see what best benefits your organization to improve how you specifically manage information. Your experience will be different than everyone else’s, so try different things to figure out what works for you and your users. Joanne Klein – MVP, Canada: If your SharePoint setup is a mess, your AI will be too. Solid, well-defined structure and smart governance (site owner stewardship, explicit permissions, retention/deletion to clean up ROT, and data protection controls) are like laying concrete before building—skip it, and your AI’s standing on quicksand. Access the full 194-page e-book, SharePoint Content AI, Solutions and Advanced Administration, at the following link SharePoint Content AI, Solutions and Advanced Administration
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