One of the toughest parts of working inside Microsoft 365 is figuring out where files should actually live. SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive overlap just enough to create real uncertainty, especially for organizations that adopted M365 organically over time.
But as more organizations begin exploring Copilot and other AI tools, the question of “what goes where” takes on even more importance. These tools are only as helpful as the content they can access. Where that content lives determines whether AI can surface it, reuse it, protect it, or completely miss it.
So rather than treating file storage as an administrative detail, this is increasingly a strategic KM decision. It directly shapes how findable your knowledge is by humans and AI.
Here’s how I help organizations make sense of this.
A Simple Framework: Me, We, and Organizational Knowledge
I still start with three categories:
- OneDrive → “Me”
- Teams → “We” (active collaboration)
- SharePoint → “Organization” (knowledge that needs to last)
But now there's an added layer:
If we want AI to help us find, reuse, and connect organizational knowledge, that knowledge needs to live in the right places, with the right permissions and structure.
Let’s look at how that plays out across the three tools.
OneDrive: Personal Work, Drafting… and Limited AI Value
OneDrive (and OneNote, for that matter) is ideal for personal drafts, analysis that isn’t ready for wider eyes, and materials you’re still shaping. It’s the digital version of a notebook you keep to yourself.
Use OneDrive when:
- You’re early in the drafting process
- Something is temporary, exploratory, or private
- You’re not ready for organizational visibility
AI considerations:
This is where many organizations get tripped up.
- Copilot generally has limited reach into individuals' OneDrive spaces, which is by design for privacy.
- If final or semi-final materials stay here, the AI tools can’t help anyone find them, reuse them, or learn from them.
- When employees leave, content tied to their personal account risks being lost, which also means it was never available for AI assistance in the first place.
Implication:
If only one person can reach the content, AI can’t help the organization leverage it. OneDrive is the right place to start, but rarely the right place for organizational knowledge to end.
Teams: Active Collaboration, Fast Iteration, and a Good Bridge for AI Readiness
Teams is where most collaborative work naturally lands — shared drafts, ongoing revisions, and the kind of quick coordination that helps a group move a project forward. Every Team includes a SharePoint site behind the scenes, so the documents stored in a channel are already in a shared, durable environment rather than tied to any one individual.
Use Teams when:
Several people need to work on something together
- The work is iterative or changing quickly
- You need shared visibility during the drafting or development phase
AI considerations:
Teams is often a helpful middle ground on the path to AI readiness. Because the documents are already in SharePoint, they’re generally accessible to tools like Copilot. Permissions tend to be cleaner, and the shared context helps Copilot understand relationships between files.
But Teams is still a working space; it’s not the final home for organization-wide knowledge. If everything stays here indefinitely, you end up with multiple drafts, abandoned ideas, and partial documents. That clutter affects both human findability and AI usefulness. AI tools don’t know which version is “the” version unless you give it a clear signal by moving completed work into the right SharePoint location.
A brief aside about Teams chats:
While we’re talking about Teams and AI, it’s worth noting that chats can introduce some noise. They often capture early thinking, alternative approaches, or ideas that didn’t make it into the final document. If that context isn’t incorporated into the finished file, Copilot may still see those older messages and treat them as relevant. Chats are great for figuring things out, but the final conclusions should always make their way into the document or into the SharePoint space where the authoritative version lives.
Implication:
Teams is an excellent collaboration layer, but not a substitute for a well-maintained knowledge repository. Once the work stabilizes, it still needs a final destination (typically a department SharePoint site) so humans and AI both know exactly where to look for the real answer.
SharePoint: Organizational Memory, Structure, and Highest AI Value
SharePoint is where things go once they become part of the organization’s actual memory — the policies, guides, templates, processes, and knowledge that help people do their work consistently.
With Copilot and other AI tools, SharePoint becomes even more important.
Use SharePoint when:
- A file has reached a final or authoritative stage
- The content should be accessible across teams or departments
- The information will outlive any individual project or staff member
- Ownership needs to be shared and maintained long-term
AI considerations:
SharePoint is where AI shines:
- Structured libraries and metadata help Copilot understand relationships
- Version history helps AI see evolution without treating drafts as final
- Consistent permissions let AI determine who should have access
- Clean architecture enables better retrieval and summarization
- Publishing content to SharePoint tells AI “this is the official version”
When SharePoint is organized, governed, and maintained, AI can actually be useful. When it’s a dumping ground, AI simply mirrors the chaos back to you.
Implication:
If you want AI to help your organization, SharePoint needs to be a well-tended garden, not an overgrown forest.
Why AI Readiness Changes How We Think About “What Goes Where”
Before AI, file storage choices mainly affected humans:
- Could we find things?
- Did we know where final versions lived?
- Could a new employee orient themselves quickly?
Now the impact is broader:
- AI tools can only help with content they can reach.
Personal silos = invisible to AI. - AI thrives on patterns and structure.
A clean SharePoint taxonomy pays dividends. - High-quality organizational knowledge improves AI performance.
Drafts, duplicates, and outdated files increase noise. - Permissions matter more than ever.
Over-restricting or over-sharing has real impacts on what AI can surface.
AI isn't magic, but it is a multiplier. Clean, intentional knowledge architecture makes the multiplier work in your favor.
Common Scenarios, Now With AI Context
1. Drafting a grant proposal
- Early drafts → OneDrive
- Collaborative writing → Teams
- Final approved version → SharePoint
- AI benefit: SharePoint version becomes the authoritative text Copilot can cite, summarize, or repurpose.
2. Onboarding materials
- Drafts → OneDrive
- Revision cycles → Teams
- Published guide → SharePoint
- AI benefit: New staff can ask Copilot questions and get reliable answers sourced from the official materials.
3. Departmental processes (e.g., finance workflows)
- Working versions → Teams
- Approved processes → SharePoint
- AI benefit: Staff can query AI to clarify steps, find related forms, or summarize procedures.
4. Personal analysis or exploration
- Always → OneDrive
- AI limitation: These insights remain invisible unless moved into shared spaces.
A Sustainable Rule of Thumb for an AI-Ready Organization
- Draft in OneDrive.
- Co-create in Teams.
- Publish and preserve in SharePoint.
This simple lifecycle aligns with how people naturally work while also creating the structure AI tools need.
It doesn’t require a big transformation. Just consistent habits, clear expectations, and occasional housekeeping.
Final Thought: AI Readiness Starts With Good Knowledge Habits
There’s a lot of hype around AI right now, but the organizations that benefit most aren’t the ones rushing toward new tools. They’re the ones with:
- Clean information architecture
- Consistent file storage practices
- Clear ownership of content
- Sustainable KM habits
- A culture of publishing knowledge, not burying it
AI is powerful but only when the foundations are steady. And in M365, that foundation is your OneDrive → Teams → SharePoint lifecycle.
