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What’s new for SharePoint – July 2025
July delivered some significant updates that will enhance your productivity, including enhanced Copilot capabilities in the text editor with new “refine” functionality that allows users to make targeted content improvements, global availability of eSignature services for secure document signing within the Microsoft ecosystem, and upcoming News page improvements that will integrate Copilot capabilities for a better user experience.
To learn more about these announcements, continue reading for detailed coverage of each feature, including rollout timelines, admin considerations, and potential benefits for your SharePoint environment.
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Users will be able to search for and select SharePoint Lists through the Context IQ menu to help ground their prompts when using Copilot Chat.
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Optical character recognition (OCR) scanning enables Microsoft Purview to scan images for sensitive information. With Embedded support, OCR will scan content in DOCX, PPTX, XLSX and PDFs (scanned and hybrid containing searchable text and images). This will be in addition to support for standalone images
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Delegate management and remediation authority for different people in different regions or organization units with role-based access control (RBAC). For example, German investigators should be able to investigate alerts and audit events for only German users. This update extends support to SharePoint for Microsoft 365.
SharePoint is updating the capabilities of its text editor Copilot. Now, you can not only use copilot to rewrite your existing text but also use it to keep writing or add a grounding document. By answering the question “what do you want copilot to change”, you can perform any number of refinements to your existing content.
Documents signed via Adobe or DocuSign eSignature, when initiated through the SharePoint eSignature platform, will now be saved in the originating SharePoint folder instead of the default Apps folder. The originating folder is the folder where the starting document was located at the point of eSignature request initiation.
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Microsoft is introducing a feature in Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management allowing admins to bypass retention policies and delete content from OneDrive and SharePoint before retention periods expire. This feature, available from August 2025, requires specific admin roles and supports managing Copilot-related artifacts independently. Compliance and role configuration updates are necessary.
Viva Amplify now supports custom themes and fonts published to Brand Center, empowering communicators to align their campaigns with brand identity and visual consistency across channels like Outlook and SharePoint.
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Sections with Copilot is a new SharePoint authoring tool that allows users to create full-fidelity SharePoint sections with just a prompt. It works by first looking at the context of your page to offer prompt suggestions for what content you need next to offer a starting point. Next, you either select one of those starting points or write your own and optionally ground in a relevant file.
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Microsoft is updating the order of the “Add Shortcut to OneDrive” and “Sync” commands in OneDrive for Business and SharePoint document libraries to improve usability. This change will roll out from late July to mid-August 2025 and requires no action from users. Update internal documentation accordingly.
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Microsoft’s native eSignature service allows users to request simple electronic signatures from Word & PDF documents in SharePoint. Recipients can easily sign documents without the documents leaving the trusted boundaries of Microsoft. This capability will be now be available in all markets with the exception of China, Indonesia and Türkiye.
The Clipchamp start page new unified hub is a revamped video hub start page experience of a single video destination for creation, discovery & consumption.
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Microsoft 365 Copilot in PowerPoint will support enterprise image libraries via SharePoint OAL or Templafy starting August 2025. Admins can connect branded image libraries to enable users to generate slides with organizational images, ensuring brand consistency. Setup requires metadata-rich images and admin configuration.
Microsoft Viva Amplify now supports custom themes and fonts from SharePoint’s Brand Center, enabling branded, consistent communications across channels. Default SharePoint themes apply automatically, with options to override. Custom fonts require deployment via endpoint management. Rollout begins mid-July 2025, with no tenant-level disable controls.
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This new capability will enable admins to scan existing files at rest in SharePoint or OneDrive for business for sensitive data.
SharePoint now offers secure sharing links for videos, allowing broader access even without site permissions. New dialogs provide options to create sharing links or copy videos to the site. This feature is on by default, rolling out from mid-July to early August 2025. Prepare by updating users and support resources.
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SharePoint eSignature users would be able to add custom free text fields to their request documents. This new eSignature field can be used to request information (such as address, full name, etc.) from signers.
Save the audio overview that you have generated within a Copilot Notebook to OneDrive so you can download or share with others.
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The News page renders news items in a given site. It is typically accessed via the “see all” experience of a news web part. We are updating the user experience of this page and bringing in Copilot capabilities to licensed users.
Meeting organizers and presenters can share meeting recap notes and follow-up tasks directly from Teams to SharePoint as a news post, facilitating the seamless sharing of post meeting follow-up details.
Listen to the latest updates
This month’s update is now also available as a podcast! If you prefer listening over reading, or want to catch up on the latest SharePoint developments while commuting or running, you can now tune in on Spotify and YouTube.
The podcast features AI hosts Maria and John, who dive into the same updates covered in this post but through a conversational format. John brings his technical analyst perspective with attention to detail, while Maria focuses on the strategic implications and user experience impact. As the prompt director, I guide the conversation to ensure we’re covering what matters most for your day-to-day work.
This is an experiment in making tech updates more accessible, so I’d love your feedback on this format. Give it a listen and let me know what you think!
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