TL;DR: The new SharePoint experience is now generally available in commercial and US government clouds, and users can no longer opt out. It adds a new app bar (Home, Discover, Publish, Build, OneDrive) and renames Followed Sites to Favorites. Featured Links has been retired. Your site branding stays, but your homepage, navigation and training need a check now.
What is the new SharePoint experience?
The new SharePoint experience is Microsoft’s redesign of SharePoint in Microsoft 365, built around three jobs: finding knowledge, publishing content and building solutions. Microsoft describes it as a new information architecture and design language that lays the groundwork for AI-assisted creation (Microsoft 365 Roadmap 547732).
On October 12, 2026, Microsoft moved roadmap item 547732 to Launched. That marks the end of a rollout that began with public preview in March 2026, reached general availability from mid-June, and finished in government clouds (GCC, GCC High and DoD) by late September (MC1240699).
In short: if your intranet runs on SharePoint Online, every employee is now using the new experience.
What changed in the new SharePoint experience?
The biggest visible change is the SharePoint app bar on the left of the screen. Here’s what’s in it and what each part does.
| Area | What it does | What it replaces or changes |
|---|---|---|
| Home | Opens your home site with its global navigation, logo and name | Shown only if a home site with global navigation is set up |
| Discover | Personalized start page: Sites, News, People, Favorites, Recent | Replaces the old SharePoint start page |
| Publish | One hub to create, manage and measure pages, news and campaigns | Pulls page and news tasks into one place; campaigns link to Viva Amplify |
| Build | Create sites, lists, libraries and AI agents | Central creation hub |
| OneDrive | Quick access to files | New app bar entry |
Source: MC1240699 and AdminDroid’s overview.
Other changes intranet teams should know:
- Followed Sites is now Favorite Sites, and Saved for Later is now Favorites. Existing items carry over automatically.
- Featured Links has been retired. Microsoft removed existing links by late June 2026 and recommends global navigation instead (MC1197131).
- Neutral theming now applies across core SharePoint surfaces. Site-level branding is unchanged.
- AI features in the new experience need a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.
Can users or admins turn the new experience off?
No. During public preview, admins could enable it and users could switch back. From Targeted Release and general availability, it applies to all tenants and users, overrides earlier preview settings and opt-outs, and leaves no controls (MC1240699). Plan for it as permanent.
What does this mean for your SharePoint intranet?
The redesign changes how people arrive at your intranet, not how your pages look. That’s good news and a to-do list at the same time.
Your homepage is now the front door, if you set it up
The Home icon appears only when you have a home site with global navigation. Without one, the first thing employees see is Discover, a feed Microsoft personalizes for each user. If you want people to land on your company’s curated front page, the home site and global navigation are no longer optional.
Discover competes with your news
Discover surfaces news, sites and people chosen by Microsoft’s relevance signals. Your homepage still controls the official story. Make sure it is the more useful of the two: clear priorities, fresh news and fast links to the tools people use daily.
Featured Links need a new home
If your teams relied on Featured Links on the start page, they’re already gone, and Discover has no place to add them back. Rebuild the important ones in global navigation or on your homepage. Global navigation is managed by your home site’s editors, and unlike Featured Links, it supports audience targeting, so different teams can see the links that matter to them.
Your brand is safe, but the frame around it is neutral
Site branding is untouched, while SharePoint’s own chrome moves to a neutral palette. Pages with a strong, consistent design will stand out more against that neutral frame. Pages built from default web parts will look even more generic. Our SharePoint Brand Center guide covers how to govern fonts, colors and themes centrally.
7 steps to take now
- Confirm your home site and global navigation. Check the Home icon appears in the app bar for a test user.
- Rebuild your old Featured Links. Recover the list from screenshots or internal docs. Add each link to global navigation, where you can target it to the right audience, or to your homepage.
- Update training and screenshots. Replace references to Followed Sites, Saved for Later and the old start page.
- Brief your helpdesk. Give them a one-page “what moved where” guide based on the table above.
- Review your homepage against Discover. Ask: does our homepage give people something Discover can’t?
- Check mobile. The SharePoint mobile app is being redesigned around Discover too; see our guide to the new mobile app.
- Map Copilot licenses. Decide who gets the AI features in Publish and Build; see Copilot in SharePoint GA.
How ShortPoint makes your intranet the starting point for everyday work
The new experience is a real improvement for finding and creating content. Publish puts page and news management in one place, and Microsoft added new page and news templates during the rollout. For a team site or a quick update, native SharePoint is a solid choice.
But your home site, your intranet’s front page, has a different job. It has to look like your company, guide people to what matters, and beat a personalized feed for attention. That’s where native web parts run out of road, and where ShortPoint helps.
| Need | Native SharePoint | ShortPoint |
|---|---|---|
| A homepage that looks like your brand, not a template | Section layouts and standard web parts; neutral SharePoint chrome | 80+ no-code design elements and full control of layout, color and typography |
| Starting fast | Microsoft’s page and news templates | Template library with 250+ intranet templates, included with every plan |
| Consistent branding everywhere | Brand Center themes and fonts | Theme Builder applies your brand colors, fonts and header styles across every page, with themes you can export to other sites; it also includes previews for desktop, tablet and mobile |
| Different content for different people | Audience targeting on some web parts | Visibility feature: show or hide any element by device breakpoint or SharePoint/security group |
| AI page creation | Copilot in SharePoint, requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot license | AI Designer (Pro and Enterprise plans) builds complete on-brand pages from a prompt, voice or image inside your SharePoint, no Copilot license required |
ShortPoint runs inside your own SharePoint, so everything Microsoft just shipped still works: the app bar, Discover, Favorites and your global navigation. It’s trusted by 12M+ users on 350K+ SharePoint sites, is a Microsoft Solutions Partner, and is SOC 2 Type 2 certified and WCAG 2.1 aligned. Viewers are always free and unlimited.
Our point of view: The new SharePoint experience makes Microsoft’s frame cleaner and more neutral. That raises the bar for your homepage. If employees land on a page that looks like every other SharePoint site, Discover wins. A distinctive, well-structured homepage built without developers is the fastest way to make your intranet the place people choose to start.
Frequently asked questions
Yes, in commercial and US government clouds. Microsoft marked roadmap item 547732 as Launched on October 12, 2026. General availability began in mid-June 2026 and completed in GCC, GCC High and DoD by late September 2026.
No. From Targeted Release onward, it applies to all tenants and users and overrides earlier opt-outs. Microsoft provides no tenant or user control to revert.
Followed Sites is now called Favorite Sites, and Saved for Later is now Favorites. Microsoft moved existing items across automatically, so users don't lose anything.
Yes. Microsoft retired Featured Links by late June 2026 and removed existing links. Microsoft recommends global navigation instead.
No. Site-level branding is unchanged. SharePoint's own interface uses a neutral theme, so your branded pages sit inside a more neutral frame.
No for the core experience; yes for its AI features, which need a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. ShortPoint's AI Designer (available on Pro and Enterprise plans) builds on-brand pages without a Copilot license.
Want a homepage that stands out in the new SharePoint? Start your 15-day free trial, no credit card required, or browse the ShortPoint template library.
