🧠 Who First Introduced the Concept of Artificial Intelligence?

The earliest foundational ideas behind artificial intelligence trace back to the British mathematician and logician Alan Turing, who is widely regarded as the first person to formally introduce the concept of machine intelligence.

🌟 Why Alan Turing?

• In 1950, Turing published his landmark paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”, where he posed the famous question: “Can machines think?” and introduced the Turing Test as a criterion for machine intelligence.
• Even earlier, in the 1930s–1940s, Turing developed theoretical models of computation (the Turing machine) and explored the possibility of machines modifying their own programs—ideas that underpin modern AI.

🧩 But What About the Term “Artificial Intelligence”?

While Turing introduced the concept, the term “Artificial Intelligence” itself was coined later by John McCarthy in 1956 at the historic Dartmouth Conference, which is considered the official birth of AI as a research field.

📌 Summary

Contribution	Person	Date	Significance
Introduced the concept of machine intelligence	Alan Turing	1950 (and earlier work in 1930s–40s)	Laid the theoretical foundation of AI; proposed the Turing Test.
Coined the term “Artificial Intelligence”	John McCarthy	1956	Formally established AI as an academic discipline.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping how organizations operate, compete, and innovate. At its core, AI refers to technologies that enable computers to learn from data, recognize patterns, make decisions, and perform tasks that traditionally required human intelligence. It’s not a single tool but a collection of capabilities—like machine learning, natural language processing, and computer vision—that work together to help systems understand information and act on it.

Today, AI is woven into everyday experiences: recommending what we watch, helping doctors analyze medical images, powering customer service chatbots, and optimizing supply chains. For businesses, AI offers clear advantages: greater efficiency, faster insights, improved customer experiences, and the ability to scale decision‑making in ways that weren’t possible before.

At the same time, AI introduces important considerations. Responsible use, data quality, transparency, and fairness are essential to building trust and ensuring that AI-driven decisions align with organizational values and regulatory expectations.

In short, AI is both a strategic opportunity and a strategic responsibility. Organizations that embrace it thoughtfully can unlock meaningful value while preparing for a future where intelligent systems play an increasingly central role in work and society.

Executive Summary: SharePoint Classifiers & Extractors

SharePoint document classifiers automatically identify and label incoming files based on their content. Once trained with sample documents, they recognize specific document types—such as contracts, invoices, or case files—without requiring users to manually tag anything.

Extractors then pull structured data from those classified documents. By highlighting examples during setup, you teach the model to capture key information like dates, names, IDs, or terms. The extracted values populate SharePoint columns automatically, making metadata consistent, searchable, and ready for workflows.

Together, classifiers and extractors transform unstructured documents into organized, actionable data across your libraries, powering better search, compliance, and automation through SharePoint Premium.

1. Classifiers identify document types automatically

Classifiers are trained models that recognize specific kinds of documents as they enter a SharePoint library. Examples:

• Contract renewals
• Legal opinions
• Case briefs
• Invoices Once trained, the classifier tags each incoming file with the correct document type, removing the need for users to manually choose categories.

2. Extractors pull structured information out of documents

After a classifier identifies a document type, extractors take over to pull out specific pieces of information — turning unstructured text into usable metadata. Examples of extractable fields:

• Service start date
• Case number
• Jurisdiction
• Parties involved
• Keywords

Each extractor corresponds to one “entity” you want to capture. You highlight examples in training files, and the model learns to find that information in future documents.

🧩 How Extractors Are Created (Simplified)

1. Name the extractor You choose a meaningful name (e.g., “Service Start Date”).
2. Choose or create a column Extracted data is stored in a SharePoint column. You can reuse existing columns or create new ones.
3. Label examples You highlight the relevant text in sample documents so the model learns what to extract.
4. Train and apply Once trained, the extractor automatically fills metadata for every new document of that type.

⚙️ How This Fits Into SharePoint Premium (formerly Syntex)

SharePoint Premium’s content processing features allow you to:

• Build classifiers to detect document types
• Build extractors to pull structured data
• Apply models to libraries so metadata is generated automatically
• Use extracted metadata in Power Apps, Power Automate, Dataverse, and search

This works across more than 20 file formats, including Word, PDF, and PowerPoint.

🚀 Why This Matters

• No more manual tagging — users just upload files.
• Metadata becomes consistent and complete, improving search, compliance, and automation.
• AI handles complex documents, not just simple text fields.
• Integrates with the Power Platform, enabling advanced workflows.

That rings true — empty corporate speak and performative policies do real damage. When leaders hide behind jargon, vague goals, or box‑checking initiatives, employees lose trust, engagement drops, and decision‑making slows. Customers notice the disconnect between polished messaging and messy reality, which erodes brand credibility. Wasted time on meaningless metrics and theater-like programs diverts resources from product improvement, customer service, and genuine strategy, while top talent leaves for workplaces that value clarity and impact.

How it plays out — concrete harms:

Erodes trust: Employees and customers stop believing promises; morale and loyalty fall.

Kills speed: Overly bureaucratic processes and approval theater delay execution.

Stifles innovation: Fear of looking bad or breaking protocol prevents risk-taking and honest feedback.

Wastes resources: Time and money go to optics, reports, and meetings instead of outcomes.

Damages brand: Public-facing spin that doesn’t match results invites skepticism and backlash.

Raises legal and compliance risk: Superficial disclosures or box‑ticking can lead to regulatory problems.

Quick takeaway:
Cut the fluff: prioritize clear goals, honest communication, and measurable outcomes to restore trust, speed, and real business value.

🌐 Microsoft is rolling out a completely redesigned SharePoint Online experience beginning March 3, 2026.

✨ Key Highlights

1. AI‑First, Copilot‑Powered SharePoint

• Deep integration with Microsoft 365 Copilot for:
  • Automatic page drafting
  • Content summarization
  • Image and layout generation
  • Metadata creation
• Requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot license for end users.

2. Fully Redesigned UI

• Cleaner, faster, more consistent with the Microsoft design system.
• Focused on discovering, publishing, and building content.
• New navigation, simplified authoring, and improved mobile responsiveness.

3. New Page & Site Templates

• AI‑generated templates
• Modernized intranet layouts
• Better branding and theming controls
• Faster site creation with guided setup

4. Flexible Workflows Built In

• Workflow creation directly inside SharePoint
• AI‑assisted automation suggestions
• Tighter integration with Power Automate

🏗️ Modernization Changes Rolling Out Through March 2026

Between September 15, 2025 and March 15, 2026, Microsoft is enforcing major modernization changes.

🚫 1. Custom Scripting Disabled on Classic Publishing Sites

• Custom scripts will be disabled by default on all classic publishing site collections.
• This affects:
  • Script Editor Web Parts
  • CEWP custom JavaScript
  • Legacy branding solutions

🧱 2. Classic Publishing Sites Are Being Phased Out

• Microsoft is pushing organizations to migrate to modern communication sites.
• No immediate shutdown, but classic publishing is effectively deprecated.

🛠️ 3. Admin Controls Updated

• New SharePoint Admin Center settings for:
  • Enabling the new SharePoint experience
  • Managing AI features
  • Modernization readiness checks

🧠 AI & Content Intelligence Enhancements (2026)

The 2026 update introduces a new layer of content intelligence across SharePoint Online.

🔍 Smart Content Discovery

• AI‑powered search that understands context
• Personalized content feeds
• Automatic topic detection (Project Cortex evolution)

📝 AI‑Generated Content

• Copilot can generate:
  • Pages
  • News posts
  • Site sections
  • Images and layouts

🗂️ Intelligent Information Architecture

• Auto‑tagging
• Auto‑classification
• Suggested metadata
• Improved compliance labeling

📅 Critical 2026 Deadlines & Retirements

⛔ End of Support for On‑Prem Versions

• July 14, 2026: End of support for:
  • SharePoint Server 2016
  • SharePoint Server 2019

This is driving many organizations to accelerate migration to SharePoint Online.

🕯️ Retiring SharePoint Features in 2026

Although details vary, Microsoft and community sources highlight several retirements:

• Legacy workflows (SharePoint Designer 2010/2013)
• Classic publishing infrastructure
• Custom script–dependent solutions

🚀 What Organizations Should Do Now

✔ Enable the New SharePoint Experience (Preview)

Admins can enable it in the SharePoint Admin Center → Settings.

✔ Audit Classic Sites

Identify:

• Classic publishing sites
• Custom scripts
• Legacy workflows

✔ Plan Migration to Modern Sites

Microsoft’s modernization tools and Copilot can accelerate this.

✔ Prepare for AI Adoption

• Ensure licensing for Microsoft 365 Copilot
• Train content authors on AI‑assisted authoring

📘 Summary Table: SharePoint Online 2026 Updates

Area	What’s New	Impact
UI & Experience	New SharePoint Experience (2026)	Major redesign, modern UI
AI Features	Copilot‑powered authoring, automation, metadata	Requires Copilot license
Modernization	Classic publishing deprecation, custom script disabled	Migrate to modern sites
Admin Controls	New AI & experience toggles	More granular governance
Retirements	Legacy workflows, classic features	Requires remediation
On‑Prem	SP 2016/2019 end of support July 2026	Migrate to cloud

🚀 Automated workflows—whether built in Power Automate, Logic Apps, or other automation platforms—only deliver real value when teams can manage, monitor, and continuously improve them. Strong governance ensures reliability, reduces risk, and keeps automations aligned with business goals. 

Below is a detailed breakdown of how teams typically handle this lifecycle. 

🧩 1. Designing and Building Workflows 

Key Activities 

• Process Mapping: Teams identify repetitive, rule‑based tasks suitable for automation. 

• Workflow Design: They define triggers, actions, conditions, and data flows. 

• Security & Compliance Review: Ensuring data access, permissions, and connectors meet organizational policies. 

• Version Control: Using environments (Dev/Test/Prod) or Git integration to track changes. 

Why It Matters 

A well‑designed workflow reduces errors, improves efficiency, and sets the foundation for easy monitoring later. 

📊 2. Monitoring Workflow Performance 

Teams use built‑in monitoring tools to track workflow health and performance. 

What They Monitor 

• Run history: Success, failure, skipped actions. 

• Execution time: Identifying bottlenecks. 

• Error logs: Detailed failure messages for troubleshooting. 

• Connector performance: API limits, throttling, authentication issues. 

• Usage analytics: How often workflows run and who uses them. 

Tools Commonly Used 

Purpose	Tools
Real‑time monitoring	Power Automate analytics, Logic Apps run history
Alerts	Email notifications, Teams alerts, Azure Monitor
Deep diagnostics	Application Insights, Log Analytics

🛠️ 3. Managing Errors and Failures 

Even well‑built workflows fail occasionally. Teams need structured processes to handle them. 

Error Management Strategies 

• Retry policies: Automatic retries for transient errors. 

• Error handling branches: “Configure run after” logic to manage failures gracefully. 

• Fallback actions: Notifications, logging, or alternative paths. 

• Incident escalation: Routing critical failures to support teams. 

Benefits 

This reduces downtime and ensures business continuity. 

🔐 4. Governance and Access Control 

Automation governance ensures workflows are secure, compliant, and maintainable. 

Governance Components 

• Environment strategy: Separate Dev/Test/Prod environments. 

• Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies: Control which connectors can be used together. 

• Role‑based access control: Makers, admins, approvers, and end users. 

• Lifecycle management: Approvals for publishing, updating, or retiring workflows. 

Why It Matters 

Strong governance prevents unauthorized access, data leaks, and unmaintainable “shadow IT” automations. 

🔄 5. Continuous Improvement and Optimization 

Automation is not “set it and forget it.” Teams refine workflows over time. 

Optimization Activities 

• Performance tuning: Reducing unnecessary steps or optimizing connectors. 

• User feedback loops: Improving workflows based on real‑world usage. 

• Updating connectors: Adapting to API changes or new platform features. 

• Scaling: Adjusting workflows as business processes grow. 

Outcome 

Workflows stay efficient, relevant, and aligned with evolving business needs. 

🤝 6. Collaboration Across Teams 

Automation success depends on cross‑functional collaboration. 

Who’s Involved 

• Business users: Identify needs and validate outcomes. 

• Automation developers: Build and maintain workflows. 

• IT admins: Manage environments, security, and governance. 

• Support teams: Handle incidents and escalations. 

Collaboration Tools 

• Shared documentation 

• Teams channels for workflow alerts 

• Change management processes 

📘 7. Documentation and Knowledge Sharing 

Clear documentation ensures workflows are maintainable and transparent. 

What Teams Document 

• Workflow purpose and owners 

• Trigger conditions and logic flow 

• Dependencies (connectors, data sources) 

• Error handling procedures 

• Change history 

Benefits 

Reduces onboarding time, prevents duplication, and supports long‑term sustainability. 

🌟 Final Thoughts 

Managing and monitoring automated workflows is a blend of technical oversight, governance, and collaboration. When teams follow structured practices, automations become reliable, scalable, and deeply integrated into daily operations. 

Removing the Everyone Except External Users (EEEU) group from a SharePoint site or library fundamentally changes how access is granted and managed. This group is often misunderstood, yet it plays a major role in default permission inheritance across Microsoft 365. 

🔍 What the EEEU Group Actually Does 

The EEEU group is a built‑in security principal in Microsoft 365. It automatically includes: 

• All licensed internal users in your tenant 

• Excludes external/guest accounts 

• Updates dynamically as employees join or leave the organization 

Because of this, EEEU acts as a broad “all employees” access mechanism—often unintentionally. 

🚫 What Happens When You Remove EEEU 

Removing the EEEU group from a site, library, or list has several immediate effects: 

1. Internal Users Lose Inherited Access 

Any user who previously relied on EEEU for access will no longer be able to open the site or content unless they: 

• Are added to another SharePoint group 

• Receive direct permissions 

• Belong to a security group that still has access 

This can cause sudden access failures for large numbers of employees. 

2. Access Control Becomes Fully Explicit 

Without EEEU, SharePoint no longer grants broad tenant‑wide access. You must now: 

• Assign permissions to specific users 

• Use custom Azure AD groups 

• Manage access at the site, library, or folder level 

This increases administrative overhead but improves security. 

3. Potential for User Disruption 

If alternative groups are not in place before removal: 

• Users may see “Access Denied” errors 

• Workflows or shared links may break 

• Helpdesk tickets may spike 

Planning and communication are essential. 

🛡️ Why Organizations Choose to Remove EEEU 

Many organizations—especially large enterprises—remove EEEU to strengthen governance and reduce oversharing risks. 

Key reasons include: 

• Security tightening: EEEU grants access to all internal users, which may be thousands of people. 

• Oversharing prevention: Users may unknowingly share sensitive content with the entire company. 

• Microsoft deprecation trends: Microsoft has already removed EEEU from OneDrive to reduce accidental exposure. 

• At least‐privilege access models: Modern security frameworks discourage broad, implicit access. 

Removing EEEU forces teams to think intentionally about who should access what they need. 

🧩 Recommended Workarounds and Best Practices 

✔️ 1. Create Custom Azure AD Security Groups 

Examples: 

• All Employees 

• All Contractors 

• Department‑specific groups 

• Dynamic groups based on attributes (e.g., department, job title) 

These groups give you precise control and predictable membership. 

✔️ 2. Use SharePoint Site-Level Permission Groups 

Assign users or groups directly to: 

• Site collection groups (Owners, Members, Visitors) 

• Specific libraries or lists 

• Individual folders (only when necessary) 

This ensures access is intentional and traceable. 

✔️ 3. Apply Conditional Access Policies (Optional) 

For organizations with Azure AD Premium: 

• Restrict access based on device compliance 

• Block certain user types 

• Enforce MFA for sensitive sites 

This adds an additional layer of security beyond SharePoint permissions. 

📝 Key Considerations Before Removing EEEU 

• Removing EEEU does not delete content—it only changes who can access it. 

• New employees will not automatically gain access unless added to replacement groups. 

• Public or broadly shared sites may become inaccessible if not reconfigured. 

• Always review: 

• Site permissions 

• Sharing links 

• Workflows and automation 

• Embedded content or connected apps 

Staged rollout with communication is strongly recommended. 

🧭 Summary 

Removing Everyone Except External Users increases security by eliminating broad, implicit access across your tenant. However, it requires careful planning to avoid accide

What’s changing

SharePoint Alerts were limited to basic, one‑off notifications—useful for simple scenarios but not adaptable to today’s more complex workflows. Their retirement reflects Microsoft’s broader move away from older, passive features toward tools that support intentional, structured automation.

Why Power Automate is the new standard

Power Automate gives users the ability to build automated workflows that connect SharePoint with email, Teams, mobile notifications, and dozens of other services. A few examples include:

• Monitoring document libraries and triggering alerts when files are added, updated, or deleted.
• Sending notifications through multiple channels, such as email, Teams messages, or push notifications.
• Automating multi‑step processes, like approvals, routing, or conditional logic—capabilities far beyond what classic alerts could do.

This makes Power Automate especially valuable for teams that need more than simple “something changed” alerts.

Why this shift matters

Retiring SharePoint Alerts is part of Microsoft’s effort to modernize the notification experience across Microsoft 365. Instead of relying on hidden, set‑and‑forget features, the platform is moving toward tools that encourage clarity, customization, and alignment with business processes. The result is a more consistent, scalable, and intelligent approach to notifications.

Description

The Filter function finds records in a table that satisfy a formula. Use Filter to find a set of records that match one or more criteria and discard those records that don’t.

The Search function finds records in a table that contain a string in one of their columns. The string might occur anywhere within the column; for example, searching for “rob” or “bert” would find a match in a column that contains “Robert”. Searching is case-insensitive. Unlike Filter, the Search function uses a single string to match instead of a formula.

Filter and Search return a table that contains the same columns as the original table and the records that match the criteria. LookUp returns only the first record found, after applying a formula to reduce the record to a single value. If no records are found, Filter and Search return an empty table.

You can expand your search to include the Company column and the Name column:

Formula

Filter(Customers, StartsWith(Name, SearchInput.Text) || StartsWith(Company, SearchInput.Text) )

– Filters the Customers data source for records in which either the Name column or the Company column starts with the search string (for example, co). The || operator is true if either StartsWith function is true. Filter customers start with.

Formula

Filter(Customers, SearchInput.Text in Name || SearchInput. Text in Company)

– Filters the Customers data source for records in which either the Name column or the Company column contains the search string (for example, co) anywhere within it.