Frequently asked questions about changes coming to Topics

Why is the Topics product being retired?

As our AI strategy continues to evolve, we’ll be retiring Viva Topics in February 2025 and will focus our efforts on building AI-powered knowledge experiences in Copilot. 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.

How should I invest in knowledge management going forward?

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. Learn more.

When will my Topics license expire?

While Topics will be available until February 2025, we encourage you to start planning and transitioning away from using the service at your earliest convenience. On expiry, users will no longer see knowledge experiences such as in-line highlights in apps such as Outlook Web or SharePoint and won't be able to hover on these highlights to surface a topic card. Any topics that have been manually inserted by users will no longer appear as a highlight, although the link to the published SharePoint topic page will persist.

When will my trial license for Topics expire?

There's no change in the duration of the trial license. You won't be able to extend these trials.

What happens to my Microsoft Graph Connector credits?

The Topics product came with Graph Connector credits. These credits will expire February 2025.

What will happen to Topic Center and topic pages?

• The existing 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.
• Topic pages that have been published by a user will be converted into standard SharePoint pages. This means that while these pages won't continue to be updated by AI, users can still edit and publish updates as they would any other topic page.
• These SharePoint pages can still appear as results in Microsoft Search results page, according to users’ permissions. They'll appear with a SharePoint page icon.
• AI-suggested and confirmed topics will no longer appear as topic pages. Only topics that appear in the Site Pages library will remain after retirement.

Do I need to be concerned about data leakage?

This change doesn't impact permissions on your content (files, sites, pages, etc.). In Topics, users only see AI-suggested content from files, sites, and pages that they have access to. Once Topics is retired, topic pages that are published will be governed by the permissions of the Topic Center SharePoint site and/or page. Any AI-suggested content that hasn't been touched by a user will be removed.

What if I need to remove an inaccurate or outdated topic page?

Users with the appropriate level of permissions can delete the page from the Site Pages library of the Topic Center SharePoint site.

My organization used Topics in Viva Engage (Yammer) prior to acquiring Viva Topics. Will these Topics disappear?

In Viva Engage, topics will return to a simplified public topics model. Public topics won't disappear from Engage threads. Topic pills will continue to link users to Engage topic pages with all conversations that have that topic attached. Core topics experiences such as adding topics to posts, following topics, and feeds of topics you follow will continue to be available. Users can no longer hover over a topic pill to open the topic card or see AI-suggested Viva Topics. A Topic Management experience will continue until retirement.

Answers in Viva experiences will also continue to work for anyone with a Viva Suite or Viva Employee Communications and Communities license.

My organization uses Answers in Viva. How will the experience change?

Answers in Viva will continue to work without Viva Topics for anyone with Viva Suite or Viva Employee Communications and Communities licenses. Answers won't continue to show topics cards on hover or link to Viva Topics pages in SharePoint, Topic management experiences will continue to be supported. Customers will continue to be able to add topics to posts, click on topics pills to see posts with that topic attached, follow topics, or route the Answers digest through topic following and Answers activity.

How should I communicate this change to my users?

This is a decision that you can make for your organization. There will be no in-product experience to message this change to your users.

What actions should Knowledge Managers take in advance of Topics being retired?

Your organization will need to decide how to take the knowledge organized in Topic Center forward. The published topic pages can be discovered through Microsoft Search and leveraged by Microsoft Copilot across Microsoft 365.

If you want to keep any AI-suggested topics, you can publish the suggested or confirmed topic, edit the properties and pin the names, types, people, and resources you want to keep.

You can also prune any inaccurate/unhelpful Topics, by using the Topic Center Manage Topics view to remove the topic and delete the SharePoint page from the Site Pages library.

How long will customer support be available for Viva Topics?

Support continues until Viva Topics is retired in February 2025.