I Love SharePoint: How a “Dying” Technology Became the Backbone of the AI Revolution

I love SharePoint. Everyone who knows me or has worked with me over the last two decades knows it.

From being an admin person who saw the opportunity of the platform and just ran with it almost 20 years ago, to where I am now, it has been a journey of ups and downs. I’ve been told to my face that I should start thinking about other avenues for my career because “SharePoint is going to die.”

And yet, here we are. SharePoint isn’t just alive; it’s the backbone of Microsoft 365 and the absolute foundation of Copilot success. That “dying” technology is now at the center of the biggest technology shift of our generation.

This is the story of why that matters—and what it means for your organisation’s future.

The Wilderness Years: When Everyone Gave Up on SharePoint

I remember the mid-2010s vividly. The rise of slick, user-friendly cloud apps made SharePoint look clunky and outdated. The consensus in the industry was that SharePoint was a legacy system on life support. I sat in meetings where executives dismissed it, where IT professionals rolled their eyes, and where I was politely advised to pivot my career before I became irrelevant.

But while everyone else was chasing the new shiny object, I was in the trenches with organisations, seeing what was actually happening. They weren’t abandoning SharePoint; they were relying on it more than ever. It was the messy, complicated, but essential digital attic where their most critical information lived. It was the system of record, the source of truth, the place where real work happened.

While others saw a dying platform, I just kept plugging away building solutions, learning, promoting and becoming more and more focussed on SharePoint and Microsoft 365 in general.

The Turning Point: From Legacy System to M365 Backbone

Then, something shifted. Microsoft didn’t kill SharePoint; they rebuilt the entire Microsoft 365 ecosystem around it.

• Microsoft Teams wasn’t a SharePoint killer; it was a new front-end for SharePoint document libraries.
• OneDrive wasn’t a replacement; it was a user-friendly window into SharePoint storage.
• Microsoft Search didn’t index a dozen different systems; it relied on the metadata and structure within SharePoint.

Suddenly, all the “boring” work I had been doing for years—information architecture, metadata management, content governance, site structure—wasn’t just important; it was mission-critical. The organisations that had invested in fixing their SharePoint mess were the ones that thrived in the new world of Microsoft 365. The ones that hadn’t were drowning in digital chaos.

The AI Revolution: Why There Is No Copilot Without SharePoint

Now, we’re at another inflection point: the age of AI. And once again, SharePoint is at the center of the conversation.

Microsoft Copilot is a revolutionary tool, but it has a fundamental dependency: it can only reason over the information it has access to. And for most organisations, that information lives in SharePoint.

Here’s the hard truth that most AI vendors won’t tell you:

AI doesn’t fix messy systems; it exposes them.

If your SharePoint environment is a chaotic mess of poorly structured sites, inconsistent metadata, and non-existent governance, Copilot won’t magically fix it. It will amplify the chaos. It will surface outdated information, give you incorrect answers, and expose sensitive data to the wrong people.

But if your SharePoint environment is well-structured, with clean metadata, clear governance, and a logical information architecture, Copilot becomes a superpower. It can find the right document, summarise the right meeting and connect you to the right expert because the foundational work has been done.

What This Means for You

The lesson from my 20-year journey is this: the unglamorous, foundational work matters most.

Chasing the latest shiny object is a losing game. Building a solid foundation is the only sustainable path to success. The principles of good information architecture that I have learned over the past 20 years is more relevant today than it has ever been.

So, if you’re feeling overwhelmed by the AI hype, take a step back and look at your foundation. Look at your SharePoint.

Is it a digital attic or a strategic asset?

Is it a mess or is it ready for AI?

Don’t let anyone tell you that SharePoint is dead. It’s the engine of the modern workplace and the key to unlocking the promise of AI.

And if you need help fixing the mess, you know who to call.