Viva Topics and Microsoft Search: How to Turn AI Topic Detection in SharePoint into Trusted Knowledge Cards

Most companies waste hours each week searching for information they already have—and the shocking part is that with Microsoft 365, that doesn’t need to happen. In this episode, I show how Viva Topics, Microsoft Search, and SharePoint can work together to automatically detect and connect your organization’s knowledge, but only if you deliberately guide the AI instead of leaving it on autopilot. We start with the messy reality of AI topic detection: cards that are brilliant one moment and baffling the next, “Project Falcon”‑style mix‑ups where unrelated initiatives get merged, and topic cards that quietly erode user trust because they are almost right, but not quite.

We go under the hood of Viva Topics to see how it actually builds topics from SharePoint files, Teams conversations, and long‑forgotten pages, and why that signal‑based approach is powerful but blind to business meaning. You’ll learn why leaving that process completely unchecked is like letting your email auto‑file every message by subject line: it works until it doesn’t, and when it breaks, people stop trusting the system. From there, we talk about a pragmatic first‑week strategy: how to quickly separate high‑value topics from noise, which cards to approve, edit, merge, or reject, and why focusing on active projects and critical business terms gives you the fastest return on your curation time.

Then we get into targeted curation instead of perfectionism. You’ll hear examples of how a vague AI‑generated topic like “Quarterly Review” becomes actually useful once you tighten the scope, rewrite the description in the language your teams use, add alternate names, and link the right slide decks, policies, and checklists. We also cover how to bring Subject Matter Experts into the loop so IT isn’t the bottleneck, and how to use Search and Viva analytics to decide which topics are worth your effort based on real user behavior.

Finally, we tackle duplicate topics and merging without losing context. We walk through a simple triage framework for handling “Marketing Playbook”‑style duplicates so you keep the good references, avoid breaking discoverability, and prevent users from seeing five nearly identical cards in Search. By the end, you’ll have a mental model for shaping Viva Topics and Microsoft Search so people don’t just use search—they actually trust it.

WHAT YOU LEARN

• How Viva Topics detects and builds topics from SharePoint, Teams, and other Microsoft 365 content—and where it goes wrong.
• Why unchecked AI topic detection creates noise and trust problems in Microsoft Search.
• A practical first‑week playbook: which topics to approve, edit, merge, or reject for maximum impact.
• How to involve Subject Matter Experts so curation is accurate, sustainable, and not blocked by IT.
• How to handle duplicate topics without losing important files, people links, or business context.

CORE INSIGHT

The core insight of this episode is that Viva Topics and Microsoft Search don’t fail because the AI is “bad”—they fail when you expect full automation to understand your business on its own. When you treat AI topic detection as a fast, imperfect starting point and layer focused human curation and SME ownership on top, you transform scattered, semi‑accurate cards into a trusted knowledge layer that helps people actually find and rely on the right content in Microsoft 365.

WHO THIS IS FOR

• Microsoft 365 and SharePoint admins who have enabled Viva Topics but struggle with noisy or confusing topic cards.
• Knowledge managers and intranet owners who want search results people actually trust and use.
• Subject Matter Experts who “own” key business knowledge and want a clear role in shaping topics.
• Leaders investing in knowledge management who need a realistic path between full automation and manual curation overload.

ABOUT THE HOST

Mirko Peters is a Microsoft 365 consultant and podcast host focused on turning modern work, security, and knowledge management into practical, governed systems. He helps organizations design context‑driven architectures across Microsoft 365 and SharePoint so tools like Viva Topics and Microsoft Search surface the right knowledge without drowning users in noise. In M365.FM, Mirko translates deep technical features and real‑world lessons into concrete stories and steps you can apply in your own tenant.


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