Using AI to generate a form

Turn a Word doc, a PDF, or a single sentence into a starter SharePoint form. Refine on the canvas; the AI does the boilerplate.

The fastest way to start a form is to let AI generate the first 80%. SharePoint Forms365 has two AI paths:

  1. AI form generation at creation time, turns a document or a sentence into a draft form
  2. AI components (AI button, AI chat) at runtime, in-form assistance for end users

This doc covers the first.

From a Word document or PDF

  1. + New form → From a document.
  2. Drop in a .docx or .pdf that describes the form you want, a paper form, a policy, an old InfoPath template, a procedure document.
  3. Pick the SharePoint list to bind to (existing or "create a new list from the AI's suggested schema").
  4. Wait ~10 seconds. The model reads the document, identifies fields, infers types, suggests groupings and validation, and produces a draft form.
  5. Refine on the canvas, rename, reorder, add rules. The AI handles the boilerplate; you handle the polish.

The backend extracts text from the document via DocumentIngestionService, sends it to Anthropic with structured prompts, and asks the model to emit a JSON form schema. The result lands in the designer as a new draft.

From a natural-language description

Don't have a document? Just describe:

"A form for staff to request a new piece of equipment. Need: their name and department, the item they want with quantity and rough cost, a justification, and a sign-off field for the line manager."

Same pipeline, no document parsing. Works well for forms with under ~20 fields; above that, providing a document gets better results.

What the AI is good at

  • Identifying every field the source document mentions
  • Picking the right field type (Text, Number, Choice, Date)
  • Grouping related fields into sections
  • Inferring sensible validation rules (required, min length)
  • Suggesting choice options when the source enumerates them

What it's not good at (and you'll need to fix)

  • Cross-field rules (visibleIf, requiredIf) beyond the obvious cases
  • Lookup targets (it doesn't know your existing SP lists)
  • Branding (theme tokens, custom CSS), that's never AI-generated
  • Custom JavaScript handlers

Quotas

Every AI generation consumes quota on your workspace account. View current usage on Settings → AI.