The new SharePoint experience is rolling out — with no opt-out
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Your SharePoint home is about to look different — and there’s no opt-out switch this time.
Microsoft is rolling out the new SharePoint experience, reaching general availability from mid-June 2026. The old start page gives way to a redesigned app bar with Home, Discover, Publish, and Build hubs; “Followed sites” and “Saved for later” are consolidated into Favorites; and Copilot-licensed users get AI-assisted page authoring. It’s been in preview since spring, but the general rollout has no opt-out.
Who’s Affected: every SharePoint user. The navigation they’ve built muscle memory around moves, and the first time someone goes looking for a followed site under its old name, that’s a help-desk ticket.
Next Steps:
• Preview the new experience yourself so you can answer the “where did it go?” questions.
• Send users a short heads-up before it lands — especially the Followed sites to Favorites change.
• Update any internal documentation or training that screenshots the old app bar.
A UI rollout with no opt-out isn’t a problem — it’s a communication exercise. The orgs that get ahead of it with a one-paragraph note see a fraction of the tickets. If you’d rather not write that note from scratch, mapping the old-to-new navigation and drafting the user comms is exactly the kind of change we run for clients.
