Are you still organizing, sharing, and editing your business files on large, outdated systems? If so, your team isn't leveraging SharePoint and realizing its productivity potential. Many people still wonder, "What is SharePoint?" And why should I use this?"

Microsoft SharePoint is one of the world's leading collaboration and content management platforms, trusted by more than 200,000 organizations worldwide. This enables seamless team collaboration and secure document management for approximately 80% of Fortune 500 companies. Simply put, SharePoint is a cloud-based content platform that helps teams work from anywhere, securely share information, and automate everyday tasks.

In this 2026 updated guide, we will cover the basics of SharePoint, highlight the latest AI capabilities, and explain how this powerful tool can transform the way your organization works. If needed, our experienced SharePoint consultants can help you apply these capabilities effectively, from strategy and design to customization and long-term optimization.

1. What is SharePoint?

Microsoft SharePoint is a highly customizable cloud platform for collaboration, content management and secure information sharing. It allows remote working, real-time collaborative work on documents, creation of intranet portals, automation of workflows and creation of specific applications according to the needs of the business.

Due to the close interaction with Microsoft 365 (Teams, OneDrive, Word, Excel and Power Automate), the user is able to access their files, sites and workspaces on any device with an internet connection. Its advanced security and permission controls help protect sensitive information while ensuring that the right people have the access they need.

2. What SharePoint is Used For

SharePoint is used to securely store, organize, share, and collaborate on business information from anywhere. Organizations use SharePoint to give authorized employees access to documents, data, and resources across teams and locations. It supports file sharing, real-time collaboration, version control, and permissions, allowing employees to view, edit, and manage content through a web browser.

For those new to the platform, SharePoint may look similar to Google Drive in basic concept. SharePoint is, however, much more developed and flexible. It has a wide configuration, higher security, greater collaboration functionality and end to end business process support. It can function as:

a shared file repository
a blog or communication site
a web content management system
a SharePoint intranet that is centralized
a workflow automation engine
a custom business building platform

SharePoint comes in various editions such as SharePoint Server (on premises) and SharePoint Online (included in Microsoft 365). A new team site created in SharePoint can provide such features as:

file versioning
check out and publication of documents
indexing and enterprise search
configurable web interfaces and pages
native integration with Microsoft 365 applications

3. Key Features of SharePoint You Should Know

Key SharePoint features including document collaboration, intelligent search, content management, workflows, AI support, and security

SharePoint has many features. Below is an overview of the most important characteristics of 2026.

Collaborate on Documents

Automatic version control allows multiple people to edit documents at the same time. Changes are tracked and you can revert to previous versions if necessary.
Intelligent Search

AI-powered search understands context and user behavior to make it easier to find documents, people, and sites in your organization.
Content Management

Organize and manage your documents with libraries, lists, metadata, retention policies, and compliance tools. SharePoint's new content AI can translate documents, autocomplete metadata, and support additional file formats like Markdown and web archives.
Collaboration Tools

Integrate with Teams, Yammer, and other Microsoft 365 apps to improve communication. Embed videos from Stream or Clipchamp and add interactive web parts like forms and charts.
Workflow Automation

Automate repetitive tasks with Power Automate. New workflow apps for Teams and SharePoint allow users to create simple automations in just a few steps, without any coding.
AI Support

Copilot helps you draft pages, summarize documents, create reports, and suggest edits using natural language suggestions. The SharePoint agent answers specific questions about site content and helps users quickly find information.
Website Design and Branding

Customize your website header, footer, and layout. A new brand center ensures consistent branding across all sites, and an estimated news reading time indicator helps readers manage their time.
Security and Compliance

SharePoint includes fine-grained permissions, data loss prevention, encryption, and access policies. AI adds intelligent threat detection and automated compliance checks to protect your data.

4. When and Why Businesses Choose SharePoint

SharePoint addresses many of the challenges that modern organizations face as teams become more distributed, information grows rapidly and digital collaboration becomes essential. Take into account the following questions which represent the daily business struggles.

Do your staff members work at home or in a hybrid mode?
Is there a high rate of movement of your employees between customer and field locations?
Are users required to access files on laptops, tablets or mobile phones without version control?
What is your current method of storing, sharing and securing important documents between different departments?
Do you offer online forms, product catalogs or service portals to either customers or internal teams?
Do you still use USBs or email attachments to share files or work together?
Do other employees frequently complain that they cannot locate the appropriate information fast?

They are typical areas of friction in both large and small organizations. SharePoint is specifically created to eliminate these problems through centralization of content, standardization of collaboration and through secure and structured access to resources.

SharePoint helps in addressing real operational requirements like:

Remote and hybrid work are made possible to allow teams to work together without having to be attached to the office.
Real-time co-authoring, which guarantees the simultaneous work of many users in documents without overwriting changes made by others.
Metadata based content organization at the enterprise level through tagging and search features to ensure that information is easily found.
Anywhere, any time access on any device that has access to the internet and helps employees who are in the field, on the road or across the time zones.
Cross-platform experiences with Microsoft 365, including integrating with Teams, Outlook, OneDrive, Power Automate and Planner, maintaining work-related connections and minimizing crossing applications.
Document governance is centralized, compliance is enforced, and version history, retention, and permissions are always enforced.
Custom forms, portals and applications, allowing organizations to build tailored digital tools for customers and employees.

5. Real-World Scenarios Where SharePoint Helped Big Brands

Below are company examples, all based on publicly documented Microsoft case studies, showing when and why businesses choose SharePoint:

Nestlé

Nestlé operates a global collaboration and content management platform based on SharePoint to serve its global employees. The corporation has over 180 countries of operation and SharePoint is a central location where employees can find internal communications, training materials, operational policies and common documents.

Nestlé also uses SharePoint with Microsoft 365 to deliver secure video distribution so that leadership messages and training materials can be delivered to employees all over regions with uniform quality and management. The multilingual support of SharePoint, built in document management and scalable architecture are a good fit to a global enterprise as large as Nestlé.

In general, SharePoint assists Nestlé to sustain a single communication channel, minimize information silos and facilitate coordination among its international teams.
Grant Thornton

Grant Thornton implemented SharePoint Online as part of the wider Microsoft 365 platform to update its in-house digital workspace. The company retired an old intranet and introduced a new SharePoint-based platform called Canvas, designed to improve communication, collaboration and access to enterprise knowledge.

The SharePoint intranet provides personalized content, modern search capabilities, mobile access and simplified document management. Teams across the organization use SharePoint to collaborate on projects, share news updates, manage HR information and securely store files.

By leveraging SharePoint’s flexible page design, strong document lifecycle management and seamless integration with Teams and OneDrive, Grant Thornton improved information sharing efficiency and delivered a unified digital experience across departments.

6. Top 10 SharePoint Use Cases Across Organizations

SharePoint is an all-purpose platform that facilitates numerous business processes within the departments. Ten of the fundamental use cases are listed below, showing how organizations are using SharePoint to centralize information, stream operations and enhance collaboration.

Using SharePoint as an Intranet Portal

SharePoint is an effective intranet which links employees with the information they require on a daily basis. An efficient SharePoint intranet provides company news, key files, departmental pages, links, calendar, process pages and all that is needed to move around work effectively.

It becomes the organization’s central digital workplace, reflecting how teams operate, communicate and collaborate.
Document Management System

SharePoint offers a well organized, document traceable system of document management across the lifecycle.

Organizations have complete document governance with inbuilt version history, permissions, metadata, workflow automation and access logs. Users are able to save, classify, access and collaborate in documents in a clear and compliant manner.
SharePoint to Manage Projects

SharePoint is used by project teams to arrange the tasks, deadlines, documents, timelines, risks, dependencies, and meeting notes in a single centralized location.

Since SharePoint is integrated with Microsoft Teams, Planner and Outlook, project work is made more transparent. Stakeholders can see the progress and cross functional teams can easily align their work.
To Support Personal Productivity

SharePoint increases the productivity of individuals by assisting them to find information fast and control their personal activities.

A single source of truth is created by document libraries, personal task lists, shared calendars and bookmarks. OneDrive, Teams and Outlook integration make employees stay connected with their work, files and deadlines without changing tools.
SharePoint as a Knowledge Base

A solid knowledge base must be organized, owned and made available. SharePoint offers all the three.

It is used by organizations to post guidelines, SOPs, training material, troubleshooting procedures and institutional knowledge. Metadata, filters, permissions and search features enable employees to find the appropriate information relatively fast and with a lot of certainty.
Using SharePoint as a Ticketing System

SharePoint aids the internal request management by offering a formalized setting of logging, routing and tracking tickets.

With Power Automate, Forms and notifications, SharePoint will be a lightweight tool to process IT requests, HR questions, facilities concerns or purchase requests with transparency and regular follow up.
SharePoint as a CRM

SharePoint may serve as a simplified CRM to maintain contacts, relations, opportunities and documentation.

It is not as specialized as full scale CRM systems but offers basic features like contact records, activity tracking, shared documents, reminders and secure access controls. It is perfect to track internal accounts, vendors or partner cooperation.
To Support Employee-Driven Innovation

SharePoint gives employees a collaborative platform to post ideas, develop suggestions, vote on improvements and make contributions towards organizational innovation.

Portals and discussion forums that are centralized aid teams in crowd sourcing solutions, enhance processes and foster a culture of continuous improvement.
SharePoint for Internal Newsletters

SharePoint is an effective platform for internal news distribution.

Announcements, videos, polls, previews of events and messages of leadership are posted on communication sites by communication teams. News archives can be stored to be referred to in the future, whereas readership analytics may be used to gauge the involvement and improve the communication strategy.
Mobile Accessibility

SharePoint provides complete access to the content and collaboration tools on any device.

Responsive design and SharePoint mobile application enable employees to navigate through sites and read documents, update lists, work on tasks and collaborate simultaneously. Real-time updates and mobile friendly pages keep the workforce in touch, informed and productive at any location through push notifications.

7. What are the Business Benefits of SharePoint

Here are the key business benefits of SharePoint, focusing on enhanced collaboration, stronger document control, and robust security:

Collaboration on Projects

SharePoint integrates project workspaces through the provision of common access to documents, calendars, task lists, discussions and notes. Co-authoring in real-time allows two or more contributors to collaborate in real time without version issues. Collaboration tools such as Teams and Yammer are integrated communication tools that offer a single collaborative experience.
Document Control

SharePoint automates the repetitive document-based processes such as approvals, notifications, versioning, retention and follow ups. Organizations can simplify workflows and ensure a steady content lifecycle with Power Automate and Microsoft 365 connections. SharePoint also makes provision of advanced enterprise search, metadata tagging and intelligent organization of content.
Security and Privacy

SharePoint has enterprise level security with role-based access control, permissions control, encryption, retention policies, multi-factor authentication and data loss prevention. Threat detection is AI-based and detects abnormalities. It protects sensitive information. Administrators are able to regulate the visibility, prevent dangerous behavior and issue mandate requirements.

8. What are the Latest Trends in SharePoint

Here are the latest innovations in SharePoint, showcasing its modern user experience, enhanced AI capabilities, and upgraded automation features:

AI Integration

SharePoint has now been integrated with artificial intelligence to enhance content creation, search and management. SharePoint Copilot can create pages, summarizing documents, creating presentations and providing suggestions in natural language.

Metadata tagging, content recommendations, and search accuracy are also improved by AI.
SharePoint Agents

SharePoint introduces AI-powered agents that help users retrieve information, summarize content and perform tasks using conversational queries.

There are two types of agents: Default Agent, which is provided in every site to operate with shared content, and User Agent, which is designed and tailored by the site owners to certain content libraries or folders.

Agents respect permissions, ensuring users only access authorized information. Agents can be accessed directly from the Microsoft 365 Copilot app.
New Site Management Features

Site certification policies have now been introduced to SharePoint, which has made site owners revisit and confirm ownership, purpose and permissions on a regular basis.

Scheduled activities will assist in avoiding security threats on unprotected sites. Administrators get superior governance and visibility throughout the environment.
Modern Analytics and Design

SharePoint provides better analytics like click through tracking, projected reading time and engagement data.

Visual updates also involve contemporary headers, footers, designs and a single brand hub. Video management has been streamlined through the integration of Stream and Clipchamp.
Workflow and Automation Updates

The simplified workflow creation with intuitive templates and three step automation builders are now supported by Teams and SharePoint.

This enables non-technical users to create useful workflows in a short amount of time and incorporate cross-team conversations into Teams.
External Sharing and Compliance

SharePoint will be integrated with Microsoft Entra B2B, which will provide a better level of security to external users.

Some of these types of links involve reinviting external partners to maintain security. Microsoft is also ending support for SPFx Field Customizers in lists and libraries, encouraging organizations to adopt modern alternatives before June 2026.

9. Copilot in SharePoint

Copilot is a SharePoint application that supports users in creating, summarizing, designing and enhancing content by relying on large language models to process natural language. Users outline their vision of a page or a site, and Copilot creates the structure, layout and content, which allows people and AI to create together.

SharePoint AI agents help to increase productivity by giving contextual responses, summarizing reports, finding information and automating repetitive processes. The flexibility and intelligence of SharePoint can be extended throughout the organization by customizing user agents to support specific departments, processes, or sets of content.

Copilot in SharePoint: Key Capabilities at a Glance

To understand how Copilot enhances modern SharePoint environments, the table below distills its most important features into a clear overview:

Category	What Copilot Does	Business Value
Content Creation	Generates pages, drafts text and refines content from simple prompts.	Faster publishing and consistent intranet messaging.
Document Summaries	Condenses long files into key insights and highlights.	Saves time and improves decision making speed.
AI Agents	Default agents answer site related questions. Custom agents target specific libraries or folders.	Reduces information hunting and boosts self service support.
Enhanced Search	Provides semantic, context aware results beyond keywords.	Employees find information quicker and with higher accuracy.
Content Recommendations	Suggests related documents during authoring.	Prevents duplication and promotes reuse of existing assets.
Auto Metadata Tagging	Applies relevant metadata automatically.	Strengthens governance and improves search and classification.
Design Assistance	Builds layouts, sections and structure based on user intent.	Enables non technical staff to create polished pages easily.
Permissions Aware Responses	Shows only content users are allowed to access.	Ensures AI generated insights remain secure and compliant.
Microsoft 365 Integration	Access Copilot capabilities across SharePoint and the Microsoft 365 Copilot app.	Unified AI experience across tools and workflows.
Workflow Efficiency	Automates routine tasks like summarizing, drafting and reorganizing pages.	Reduces manual effort and accelerates delivery cycles.

Also Read: Guide to use Microsoft's Copilot in SharePoint

10. SharePoint vs OneDrive vs Google Drive

SharePoint vs. OneDrive

SharePoint and OneDrive are both Microsoft document storage products, but they serve different purposes and functions. While OneDrive is basically an online folder system for storing files, SharePoint includes many other features such as collaboration, CMS, and more.

OneDrive is designed for personal use, and each user has their own personal storage space. Ideal for storing personal documents and files that are not intended to be shared with others.
SharePoint, on the other hand, is designed for collaboration. It allows you to create sites and subsites where you can store, organize, and share files within your organization.

SharePoint vs. Google Drive

SharePoint and Google Drive may seem similar at first glance, but they are actually very different. Both offer cloud storage and collaboration tools, but they differ greatly in how they integrate with other tools and in what they do.

Google Drive is primarily a storage service similar to OneDrive, but it also lets you collaborate on documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in real time.
SharePoint, is a more robust platform. It includes document storage and collaboration, and also has more advanced features such as workflow automation, custom app creation, and advanced content management features.

SharePoint vs OneDrive vs Google Drive

Feature / Criteria	SharePoint	OneDrive	Google Drive
Primary Purpose	Enterprise collaboration, intranets, document management, workflow automation	Personal and departmental file storage	Cloud file storage and collaboration
Ideal For	Organizations needing shared workspaces, team sites, complex collaboration and governance	Individual users storing personal work files, drafts and synced files	Teams looking for simple cloud document storage and quick collaboration
Collaboration Model	Team-based, multi-user, structured collaboration with permissions	Mostly individual, with optional file or folder sharing	Real-time co-editing with strong multi-user collaboration
Platform Type	Enterprise platform part of Microsoft 365	Personal/cloud file storage in Microsoft 365	Cloud-first platform in Google Workspace
Best Use Case	Intranets, project sites, document libraries, automated workflows, compliance-heavy operations	Personal storage, private files, syncing desktop files to cloud	Lightweight collaboration, education, small teams
Integration	Deep integration with Teams, Outlook, OneDrive, Power Automate, Power Apps	Syncs with Windows, Teams and Office apps	Strong integration with Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Meet
Document Management	Advanced versioning, metadata, content types, retention policies	Basic versioning and file-level access	Basic versioning, shared drives for team content

11. SharePoint is Significant for Success

SharePoint is a universal content platform that improves collaboration, productivity, and security with AI-powered management and automation. Recent improvements include site authentication, advanced analytics, and simplified workflows, strengthening its role in the modern workplace.

If you want to learn how SharePoint can transform your organization, Congruent Software can help. Our SharePoint Migration Service provides site assessment, design consulting, training, and support to facilitate effective implementation.

Ready to modernize collaboration and content management? Contact us to learn how SharePoint can power your team.

What is SharePoint and What is it Used For: A Guide for 2026