A comprehensive global intranet benchmarking study, reviewing more than 159,000 intranet pages across 28 organisations, has delivered an important message for business leaders: employee reliance on intranets is increasing, but design shortcomings are limiting their impact on productivity and decision-making.
The research found that 93% of employees accessed their intranet over a three-month period. Despite this high engagement, the average session duration was under six minutes, with users viewing only 2.19 pages per visit. This suggests a clear gap between how often intranets are used and how effectively they support users in finding information quickly.
What This Means for BusinessesThe findings point to several key opportunities for organisations looking to improve collaboration, reduce operational friction, and unlock better ROI from Microsoft 365:
1. Streamlined Structures Reduce Wasted Time
With employees making an average 3.36 visits per day, unclear navigation or cluttered information directly translates to lost productivity. Many organisations still treat SharePoint as an unstructured document dump, rather than a strategic workspace.
2. Evergreen Content Drives Value
While over half (52%) of intranet pages are news, the study shows that evergreen content—policies, procedures, reference materials—attracts significantly higher engagement, with 67% of content pages visited compared to 41% of news.
This signals a major opportunity for organisations to prioritise structured, high-value content that supports day-to-day work.
3. Governance Issues Are Holding Back Intranets
Inconsistent tagging, unmanaged sprawl, and duplicate content reduce search accuracy and increase compliance risk. These pain points also reduce the effectiveness of new AI tools emerging across Microsoft 365.
4. AI Success Depends on Strong SharePoint Foundations
The study’s AI Readiness Index, with an average score of 51.1 out of 100, shows that many organisations are not yet prepared to leverage Copilot and other AI efficiencies. Poorly structured or outdated content limits what AI can surface, summarise, or accelerate.
“People aren’t disengaged from intranets. They simply don’t have time to fight through bad ones,” said Ian Loman, Sales Director at Adepteq. “The opportunity for organisations is huge: fix structure, governance, and design, and productivity immediately improves.”
Adepteq Responds with Practical Support for Businesses
To help organisations translate these insights into tangible changes, Adepteq has released the SharePoint Business Benefits Guidebook 2026—a practical, free resource that explains how to fix common SharePoint issues, build a purposeful site structure, and modernise digital workplaces for the AI era.
The guide covers:
- The Top 10 SharePoint Myths affecting adoption
- How poor configuration silently drives duplication, compliance risk, and hidden cost
- How to design SharePoint the way people actually use it
- Improving search and navigation to support AI and Copilot
- Practical steps to replace spreadsheets and manual workflows
- How better governance boosts productivity across every department
Drawing on real-world lessons from Adepteq’s work with membership bodies, engineering institutions, and retail organisations, the guide provides immediate actions businesses can take to increase the value of their Microsoft 365 investment.
Adepteq’s Soft Launch of Its New Guide
The SharePoint Business Benefits Guidebook 2026 is available now as a free download, offering leaders and digital workplace teams a clear roadmap for improving their intranet’s effectiveness and preparing their organisation for an AI‑powered future.
Download the guide: https://www.adepteq.com/sharepoint-business-benefits-guidebook/
About Adepteq
Adepteq is a UK-wide Microsoft 365 migration and governance specialist with a strong presence in London and the South East, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Manchester, Plymouth, and Portsmouth. With over 1,000 successful migrations, Adepteq helps businesses modernise and secure their digital workplaces using SharePoint, Teams, and Microsoft 365.
Contact: Ian Loman Email:[email protected] Website:https://www.adepteq.com
Reference: SWOOP Analytics®’ 2025 SharePoint Intranet Benchmarking
