Microsoft launches public preview of SharePoint Skills for AI customisation
Jeff Teper, Microsoft 365 executive vice president, announced the public preview of Skills in SharePoint at the M365 Community Conference on 21 April 2026. Skills allow end-users to create and customise AI actions, such as tailored Copilot prompts for document handling or site navigation. Users can also share these skills as best practices across SharePoint sites. The feature enters public preview immediately, letting admins and site owners test it in their Microsoft 365 tenants.
Before, SharePoint AI like Copilot offered fixed capabilities that rarely matched company needs, leaving intranets underused as users fell back to email or file shares. Custom skills now let teams adapt AI to real workflows, potentially cutting search times on cluttered sites by feeding it company-specific context. But without site-level controls, this risks a flood of unvetted skills that expose permissions or create inconsistent experiences, amplifying Teams sprawl into AI chaos. The shift hands power to end-users, forcing admins to rethink governance just as new SharePoint changes loom in 2026.
Analysis
This could finally make your intranet useful by letting users skill-up content discovery, but it'll explode into permission nightmares without a chokehold. Inventory Copilot prompts on your top three team sites today, approve two skills via a hub site template, and mandate them for all new communication sites.
Citation
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