Microsoft 365 introduces SharePoint design ideas for enhanced content creation

Microsoft has unveiled a new feature for SharePoint, known as SharePoint design ideas, which leverages AI to suggest improvements to the structure of SharePoint content. This innovative tool aims to enhance the authoring experience by providing layout, background, text formatting, and image web part suggestions.

How SharePoint design ideas work

When authors create a new section in SharePoint, design ideas identifies the text and web part content and offers new layouts, backgrounds, text formatting, and image web parts to enhance the section. Authors can then click on these suggestions to try and apply different ideas. For sections with additional content, design ideas summarizes the text to provide appropriate image web part and background suggestions, along with basic text formatting.

SharePoint design ideas features

• AI-powered suggestions: Design ideas uses AI to analyze the content and suggest improvements.
• Layout and formatting options: Authors can choose from various layouts and formatting options to enhance their sections.
• Image and background suggestions: Design ideas provides image and background suggestions based on the content.
• Compatibility: Initially, Design ideas will be available for sections containing banner web parts, text web parts, and combinations of text and image web parts.

Availability

The SharePoint design ideas feature began rolling out to customers in August 2024 and is expected to be available worldwide by the end of September. This update is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 124846. Organizations do not need to take any preparatory steps, but it is recommended to inform users about this improvement.

Future improvements

Microsoft plans to expand the capabilities of design ideas by supporting new web parts and providing content update suggestions for long texts, such as those copied from Word documents. These enhancements aim to further streamline the content creation process and improve user experience.

The introduction of SharePoint design ideas marks a significant step forward in enhancing the authoring experience on SharePoint. By leveraging AI to suggest improvements, Microsoft aims to make content creation more efficient and visually appealing. As this feature continues to evolve, it is expected to have a positive impact on user engagement and productivity.