SharePoint Gets Smarter: Microsoft Brings AI-Powered Charts to Pages

Microsoft is making SharePoint a little more intelligent for people who spend their working days creating internal websites, dashboards, reports and communication pages.

The company is rolling out a new AI-assisted Charts web part in SharePoint, giving page authors a simpler way to turn information into interactive visualizations. Instead of manually entering data, selecting chart settings and repeatedly adjusting the design, authors can describe what they want in everyday language and let AI help build the chart.

The update is particularly interesting because it brings AI-assisted data visualization directly into the SharePoint page-authoring experience. Users do not have to leave the page to create a visualization in another application and then figure out how to bring it back into SharePoint.

Microsoft says the feature is designed to help authors create rich, interactive charts using natural-language prompts. Once a chart has been generated, users can continue talking to the AI to add, remove or edit information and change the chart’s appearance.

The update is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 560076 and Microsoft updated the rollout timeline on August 7, 2026.

AI turns chart creation into a conversation

Creating a chart traditionally involves several steps. An author needs to understand the available data, decide which visualization makes sense, select a chart type, enter or connect the data and then spend time making the result look appropriate for the page.

Microsoft’s new approach is much more conversational.

A SharePoint page author can explain the desired visualization in plain language. For example, an author could ask for a bar chart showing sales by region or a line chart showing monthly performance.

The AI can then use that request to create the chart on the page.

Microsoft’s support documentation confirms that authors can start with prompts such as creating a bar, pie or line chart and can provide additional context through attached files. Microsoft also recommends making prompts as specific as possible because additional context can help the AI produce a more useful result.

That makes the feature potentially useful for employees who understand their business data but may not be particularly comfortable with chart-building tools.

In other words, the user can focus more on what the data should communicate rather than on every technical step required to create the visualization.

How the new SharePoint Charts web part works

Microsoft is offering multiple ways to start creating a chart.

While editing a SharePoint page, users can open the AI agent chat pane using the Agents icon in the upper-right navigation or the AI sparkle icon available on the page toolbar.

Another option is to open the SharePoint web part toolbox and search for Chart under the AI category. Selecting the Chart web part automatically opens the chat pane, where the author can describe the desired visualization.

From there, the process becomes a prompt-driven experience.

Authors can describe the data they want to visualize and specify the type of chart they need. Relevant files can also be attached to provide additional context.

This is part of a broader direction Microsoft is taking with AI in SharePoint. The company already positions Copilot in SharePoint as a way to help content creators work with pages, files, sites and other organizational content through natural-language interactions.

The new chart capability extends that idea into data visualization.

Users can keep refining the chart with AI

Creating the first version of a chart is only part of the story.

One of the more useful aspects of the new feature is the ability to continue using prompts after the chart has been created.

Authors can ask the AI to add, edit or remove data. They can also request changes to the chart’s visual appearance.

For example, instead of manually rebuilding a visualization, an author could ask the AI to change the presentation of an existing chart or update its information.

Microsoft also provides an Undo option in the command bar, giving authors a straightforward way to reverse changes if an AI-generated modification does not produce the desired result.

That iterative approach could be especially useful when creating SharePoint pages for management reports, project updates, departmental dashboards or company-wide communications.

Rather than treating a chart as a finished object, Microsoft is essentially making it another part of the conversational editing experience.

What types of charts can be created?

Microsoft’s support documentation indicates that the feature can be used for a broad range of visualizations.

Examples include bar, line, pie, area, donut, histogram, heat map, funnel, Sankey, table, polar scatter and gauge charts, among others.

That variety is important because not every business question is best answered with a simple bar chart.

A sales team might want a line chart showing performance over time. A management team could prefer a gauge or table for a quick performance snapshot. A process or flow-oriented visualization may be better represented by a Sankey chart.

The ability to request different formats through natural language could make these options more accessible to everyday SharePoint authors.

Microsoft 365 Copilot license is required for authors

There is an important licensing distinction organizations should understand.

According to Microsoft’s support documentation, page authors need a Microsoft 365 Copilot license to create and edit charts, while viewers do not need a Copilot license simply to view the resulting chart.

The rollout information provided by Microsoft also states that the feature is enabled by default for users with the required Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

That means organizations do not need to perform a separate deployment action to turn the feature on. However, administrators may still want to review which employees have Copilot licenses and determine whether their internal documentation or training materials need to be updated.

For companies with many SharePoint authors, this could become an important consideration. A large organization may have thousands of SharePoint users but only a smaller group responsible for creating and maintaining pages.

Those authors are the people most likely to benefit directly from the new AI chart functionality.

The rollout timeline has changed

The timing of the update has also changed.

Microsoft’s August 7, 2026 update revised the previously announced rollout schedule.

For Targeted Release, rollout was moved to begin in late May 2026, with completion expected by mid-June 2026.

For General Availability worldwide, rollout began in mid-June 2026, with completion expected by the end of August 2026.

That means organizations should not necessarily expect every user to see the feature at exactly the same time. Microsoft 365 features are frequently introduced gradually, and Microsoft’s own SharePoint documentation notes that some functionality can be introduced progressively across organizations.

As a result, an administrator or SharePoint author who does not immediately see the Chart option should not necessarily assume that something is broken.

No major preparation is required

For organizations, the good news is that Microsoft says no action is required to prepare for the rollout.

Still, there are a few practical steps IT and SharePoint teams may want to consider.

First, organizations can inform SharePoint page authors about the new capability. People who regularly create internal pages may find that AI can significantly simplify some of their existing workflows.

Second, companies that maintain internal SharePoint or Microsoft 365 documentation may want to update those guides to explain how the AI chart experience works.

Finally, administrators can review their Microsoft 365 Copilot licensing assignments to understand which users will have access to the authoring capabilities.

These are not mandatory deployment steps, but they could make adoption smoother.

What about security and compliance?

The arrival of generative AI in a page-authoring workflow naturally raises questions about data, permissions and governance.

Microsoft states that existing SharePoint permissions and Microsoft 365 policies continue to apply to the feature.

That is important for organizations where SharePoint contains sensitive business information. AI-assisted functionality does not eliminate the existing permission model that controls access to organizational content.

Microsoft’s broader SharePoint AI documentation also emphasizes that AI capabilities operate within the user’s existing access context.

At the same time, organizations should treat AI-generated visualizations with the same care they would apply to manually created reports. Authors should review the underlying data and the resulting chart before publishing it, particularly when the visualization will be used for management decisions or external-facing communications.

AI can make chart creation easier, but human review remains important.

A bigger shift for SharePoint authors

The most interesting part of this update may not actually be the chart itself.

It is the direction Microsoft is taking with SharePoint.

The platform is increasingly moving from traditional point-and-click authoring toward AI-assisted creation. Microsoft already offers AI capabilities for creating and improving pages, working with files, generating content and interacting with SharePoint information.

The new Charts web part adds another piece to that puzzle.

Instead of requiring every page author to become proficient with a collection of specialized tools, Microsoft is trying to make common tasks accessible through natural language.

That could change how internal communications teams, project managers, HR departments, sales teams and business users build SharePoint pages.

A user does not necessarily need to think in terms of “which setting should I select?” They can increasingly think in terms of “What do I want this page to show?”

The bottom line

Microsoft’s AI-powered Charts web part is a relatively focused update, but it reflects a much larger trend in Microsoft 365: AI is becoming part of everyday content creation rather than remaining a separate tool.

For SharePoint authors, the immediate benefit is straightforward. They can describe a chart in plain language, provide supporting data or files, generate the visualization and then continue refining it with additional prompts.

The feature requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot license for authors, while viewers can view the resulting charts without needing a Copilot license. Microsoft says the feature is enabled by default for eligible users, and no organizational action is required for deployment.

With worldwide General Availability scheduled to complete by the end of August 2026, more SharePoint users should soon encounter AI-assisted chart creation as part of their normal page-authoring workflow.

For organizations already investing in Microsoft 365 Copilot, this could be another small but meaningful step toward making SharePoint a more intelligent workplace publishing platform.

And for SharePoint authors, the message is even simpler: you may no longer need to build every chart manually. Just tell SharePoint what you want to see.