Ireland, Dublin, ESPC 2025. The event in this part of the world to hear all the news Microsoft has to offer around SharePoint. As I4-YOU we couldn’t resist going there, also because our MVP Martin Lingstuyl got to fill one of the sessions. Bo and Peter flew in after him.
That it would be about AI/Copilot was clear beforehand. The extent of it was not, but it turned out to be overwhelming and somewhat drowned out a lot of other nice and useful things that were discussed.
Highlight as far as we were concerned was Rafal Lukawiecki’s keynote; will AI become intelligent’ he wondered. A relief to hear someone who reduces enthusiasm about AI to normal proportions. Yes, AI can do a lot, but hallucination is part of it; human intelligence is indispensable to correct and/or supplement. When it comes to calculations, that’s where AI misses the mark considerably. The message that stuck: get going with AI because it can’t be ignored and takes work off your hands, but check and stay in control.
Also, the session of Susan Hanley On how to make your intranet more impactful gets was definitely worth listening to. Microsoft brings the necessary enrichment for when you want to get started with standard SharePoint. Los of all kinds of technical gadgets highlighted Susan the need to especially with the various organizational questions such as “what does the business need,” “what and who do you want to achieve,” and “how does the governance (such as “who gets to manage content?) out‘ getting started. By the way, nice to note that @Fresh intranet really does offer everything (including AI) demanded by communications professionals.
Following on from the session on intranet, a session on how to get frontline workers achieved. After all, those employees are not sitting behind a desk but walking somewhere in the field or on the construction site and can only be reached through their cell phones. To give them a similar intranet experience, they can do so securely via Intune and Entra ID to be set up; Microsoft makes it attractive via F1 licensing and the F5 security add-on for security. Teams and Viva Engage provide an excellent user interface.
Data migration, which organization doesn’t have to deal with it. Unfortunately, it still goes wrong too often. This need not always be due to the input data itself, although there is often something missing there. A good step-by-step approach helps both prevent datagarbage is going to play tricks on you if that work and turnaround time is significantly higher than originally quoted. And that benefits no one.
Katelyn Holms, a new kid on the Microsoft block, brought us the necessary news dat Microsoft is currently launching. Again, AI dominates when it comes to novelties. Just some of the features that have just hit the market: flexible sections, expanded styling options, FAQ webpartAI to create sections and text creation for intranets definitely interesting. But it doesn’t stop there, and you can tell from everything that Microsoft is betting heavily on AI. A glimpse for next year: Knowledge Agent, create page from Planner, Teams meeting recap, M365 Copilot and Loop. But also AI Summary of top news at personlizad language; certainly the latter is super interesting. An energetic and inspiring session of Katelyn!
When it comes to data lifecycle, our MVP Martin Lingstuyl’s session was an absolute highlight. With practical examples from I4-YOU projects, he showed how Purview helps organizations get a grip on data. Including lessons learned and concrete tips that will benefit everyone immediately. Despite the time slot (a so-called graveyard session), this was the most visited session, with an impressive score of 9.6 out of 10. Proud.
This is just a sampling of all that passed by. With eight parallel sessions each, choices were inevitable. On the expo floor, the large range of solutions to prevent chaos in Teams and SharePoint sites was particularly striking. A confirmation that Workspace Assistant 365 responds to a clear need.
And, of course, there was also time to explore Dublin. With the Christmas season approaching, the city was attractively lit, the pubs cozy and the conversations good. The useful with the pleasant. Next year Amsterdam; the tickets have already been ordered.
