To target content to specific audiences, SharePoint offers a modern audience targeting feature. By enabling this targeting, particular content is assigned to audiences defined through the pages libraries.

It is with this in mind that the "Consider Modern SharePoint Audiences" function was integrated into the Configurator, thus allowing SharePoint audience targeting to be taken into account for news within the Unified Experience.

To use audience targeting, you first need to enable it in the library settings:

• Go to the pages library.
• In the library, select Settings, then Library Settings.
• Under General Settings, choose Audience targeting settings.
• Check the box for Enable audience targeting and confirm by clicking OK.

• Select the audience to target. If necessary, create a Microsoft 365 group that includes members of your audience.
• In the library, select a file and open the details pane.
• Assign a value to the Audience property, then republish the pages and update the news articles.
• On the site pages, verify that the appropriate audiences are targeted for the corresponding content.

To integrate SharePoint audience targeting into your news in the Unified Experience, it is necessary to create a result source at your tenant level. To do this:

• In your tenant’s SharePoint Admin Center, select More features.
• Under Search, click Open, then select Manage Result Sources.
• Create a New Result Source.
• In the Query Transformation section, insert the following query:

{searchTerms} AND (ModernAudienceAadObjectIds:{User.Audiences} OR NOT IsAudienceTargeted:true)

• Click Save.

• Retrieve the identifier of the result source you just created.
• In the Configurator, select Unified Experience then News Feed.
• Enable consideration of modern SharePoint audiences, paste the identifier of your result source, then click Apply.

News published in the Unified Experience is now targeted based on modern SharePoint audiences.