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Microsoft's March announcement that it was retiring Viva Topics felt almost inevitable. Microsoft first introduced Topics as part of the original Viva Suite, the "employee experience platform" that entered preview in February 2021 and into general release in November of the same year. The Viva Suite license bought access to Viva Topics, Viva Connections, Viva Insights and Viva Learning.
Goodbye Viva Topics, We Only Just Started
While Topics officially debuted with the 2021 launch of Viva, it was based on Project Cortex, which Microsoft introduced at its Ignite conference in November 2019.Topics (and Project Cortex before it) was designed as a knowledge management tool that used AI and natural language processing to identify, classify and surface knowledge resources within an organization. It was an iterative tool, meaning that it refreshed topics as new sources of knowledge came in via documents, chats and similar and it thus maintained the knowledge landscape. Since its launch, Microsoft worked to integrate Topics across the entire Microsoft 365 portfolio, including earlier this year, with the integration of Topics into Viva Engage.
So why the change of heart?
Microsoft will sunset Topics on Feb. 22, 2025. In the related announcement, the company attributed the decision to "the generational shift in AI technology underway." The company will now focus its efforts on building new AI-powered knowledge "experiences" in Copilot.
Generative AI through Copilot has landed, and Topics is one of the first victims.
Given the level of investment into Copilot, the decision makes sense, but it is causing some consternation in the workplaces that had built part of their knowledge strategy around Topics.
“Copilot enables people in your organization to discover and learn more about topics, projects and concepts in a natural and automatic way and is integrated across the Microsoft 365 suite all while requiring minimal setup,” stated the same Microsoft announcement.
The announcement went on to advise customers using Topics to turn to SharePoint. “We recommend you use SharePoint to publish and organize knowledge that can be discovered via Microsoft Search and leveraged via Microsoft Copilot across Microsoft 365. You'll get analytics on these sites, and we'll enhance these experiences in the future."
In practical terms, this means that the Topic Center where the Topics data is located will be converted into a normal SharePoint site, capable of being maintained and governed like any other SharePoint site. Users can surface the knowledge via search or with Copilot.
Sounds straightforward, no? Not for the organizations now tasked with converting the knowledge contained in Topics into something that is findable in SharePoint.
Related Article: Microsoft's Project Cortex Wants You to Hire a Knowledge Manager
A Move to SharePoint
This isn't the first time Microsoft has retired a piece of software, said Serious Insights principal analyst Daniel W. Rasmus. The replacement is typically something equivalent or better. Groove became OneDrive. Fast Search ended up as part of SharePoint server. Rasmus suspects the reason behind Viva Topics' retirement was it had a different approach to AI and was competing for resources with the main roadmap, which ended up getting pruned.
He also noted that Microsoft has never been overly committed to traditional knowledge management. "I think it is too manual a process for them, too human-centric. I believe Microsoft sees generative AI as an opportunity to automate much of what was done through manual curation of knowledge, of which Viva Topics was a recent incarnation,” he said.
However, he sees the suggested move to SharePoint as a practical solution for those organizations actively using Topics. Once the topics are converted to SharePoint sites, they can be managed the same as other items in SharePoint, using APIs and other tools to surface the knowledge, even if it is no longer as automatic. They can continue traditional KM approaches to updating knowledge and finding it via search.
He also believes that globally, the decision won’t have a huge impact on Microsoft in the digital workplace. "If it [Topics] had a huge following, Microsoft might have something in the works that replaces it before retirement, but that won’t likely be announced until it is ready. Copilots for SharePoint are nascent. I would think that providing access to knowledge stored in SharePoint would be a major effort,” he added.
Looking forward, he points out that one of generative AI’s core values comes from classification. He also speculates that Microsoft many offer a way to convert the public topics into something else that informs their Copilots.
That would be a good way forward, but they need to refine the architecture so that whatever they come up with doesn’t create another roadmap spur. In the meantime, as noted above, organizations will likely need to manually maintain the topic they care about.
Related Article: Defining the Knowledge-Centric Digital Workplace
Knowledge Management Isn't a Priority for Microsoft
Viva Topics never delivered on its potential, Eric Overfield, CIO of Creospark and a Microsoft regional director and MVP told Reworked. Perhaps Microsoft will come up with a better knowledge management (KM) solution by concentrating on a single AI approach.
However, enterprises with strong KM requirements may want to look elsewhere for a partner dedicated to managing knowledge rather than to Microsoft, where KM clearly remains a peripheral offering.
The first step to preparing for Viva Topic’s retirement is to audit how your organization has been using it, he said. How many librarians and Topics administrators are being affected? How many topics were in your Topic Center? With an idea of how your organization was using Viva Topics, organization can then consider how to move their knowledge management initiatives forward.
Overfield also points out that none of the knowledge will be lost. As Topic Center and Topic pages were built on SharePoint, the Topic Center will become a standard SharePoint site, and your pages will become standard SharePoint pages, enabling feature parity of page management as any other SharePoint page.
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One immediate step he recommends is to consider adding custom metadata to the now standard SharePoint pages that have the Topic information, making them more easily findable via search.
As no feature parity offering is currently available or announced within the Microsoft Viva or Microsoft 365 ecosystem, if organizations want to continue with a knowledge management strategy within their workplace, Overfield offers a few options to consider as possible replacement strategies, including:
1. Copilot and Custom Copilot Solutions
If organizations are looking to manage content within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem and in particular within SharePoint, which Topics used, Microsoft Copilot can assist with content management and discovery.
2. Microsoft Teams
If Teams is already the central hub for teamwork, Overfield suggests users continue to leverage teams, channels, tabs and apps. Channels may be used for different topics or projects, to share files, to have discussions, and to integrate various apps and services. In a similar vein, look to Viva Engage, where organization knowledge is contained within groups and communities that should be available to anyone at any time.
3. Viva Connections
Connections already focuses on employee engagement and acts as a gateway to a company's digital workplace. Although it is not a direct replacement for Viva Topics' knowledge management capabilities, Connections can serve as a hub for employees to access news, announcements and resources related to organizational knowledge management, Overfield said.
4. SharePoint Premium Taxonomy Tagging
SharePoint Premium Taxonomy Tagging uses AI to automatically add metadata to content, similar to what Viva Topics did with automated topic generation. By using AI to add metadata, organizations can more easily surface the knowledge now stored in SharePoint.
“Much of how you were using Viva Topics stays intact. However, you are losing aspects of AI helping curate topics and the ability to surface those topics within the flow of work,” Overfield said. "The knowledge contained within Topics still exists within the SharePoint site previously configured as your Topic Center, and your Topic pages are now standard SharePoint pages.”
Related Article: Do You Need SharePoint Premium? Here's What to Consider
A Need to Preserve
It's unclear if Topics ever had any broad adoption, but the decision will affect a visible community of knowledge managers, Preservica chief product officer Stuart Reed said. And with no obvious like-for-like replacement, those knowledge managers need to plan for change.
AI-suggested Topics and pages that haven't been edited by users will be removed when support ends, so an obvious first step should be for organizations to audit their knowledge base in the topic center and commit anything they want to retain so it converts to a SharePoint page.
“Generally, though, this reiterates the need to protect against the fragility of software platforms for long-term and permanent record keeping,” Reed said. "Digital preservation strategies of key content and records transcends the increasingly short product lifecycles being seen in modern cloud software.”
An Opportunity to Transition to Knowledge Management
A transition to newer knowledge management platforms deserves close examination, James Velco, president and CIO of TechNoir, told Reworked.
He says these systems can preserve topic hierarchies and metadata while providing expanded features like customized page configurations. Integrating topic content into alternative discovery tools helps maintain accessibility across user interfaces.
Using topic information as training data could also benefit new AI applications supporting similar goals.
“With strategic planning, businesses can leverage this period of change to strengthen overall approaches. Careful assessment of current needs alongside future-proof options will put organizations in a good position once Viva Topics exits the technology landscape,” he said.
Replacing that functionality may require workflow adjustments for companies heavily reliant on Topics' auto-generated pages and suggested content, he added.
Beyond technical impacts, such a change could also affect how easily end users can find the information they need. That's why planning is important — identifying alternative options, assessing content migration needs and preparing training for new systems help ensure a smooth transition.