If you’re wondering how to use Copilot in PowerPoint to upgrade your presentations, you’re in the right place. For the last year, Microsoft has invested heavily in making its Copilot generative AI assistant the ultimate tool for next-level productivity.
Today, the Copilot experience is available in various flavors, from the standard Microsoft Copilot (previously Bing Chat) to Microsoft 365 Copilot and even Security Copilot.
There are also various ways to access Copilot for PowerPoint. If you want the most advanced experience (including the ability to customize Copilot with Copilot Studio), you’ll need a Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription. Alternatively, you can use a Microsoft Copilot Pro subscription to access the basic features in PowerPoint for the web.
What Can Copilot Do in PowerPoint?
Before we look at how to use Copilot in PowerPoint, let’s outline what you can do with the tool. Microsoft’s Copilot solution is a generative AI assistant built by Microsoft and infused into various products, such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Teams, and Excel.
In PowerPoint, Copilot helps users create, edit, and enhance presentations. It can also assist with summarizing content and optimizing slideshows.
Like all of the Copilot experiences integrated into Microsoft’s Office apps, Copilot for PowerPoint features the same underlying LLM technology, Microsoft’s security, identity, and privacy compliance policies, and access to Microsoft Graph. It also allows you to interact with a generative AI bot using natural language prompts.
You can ask Copilot to create a presentation based on a specific topic or summarize an existing presentation to make it shorter and snappier. Copilot can also restructure your slides to tell a more cohesive story. Plus, it can implement your organization’s branding into every presentation so you can present a consistent image to customers and stakeholders.
Like other versions of Copilot, the AI app in PowerPoint can pull information from your other Microsoft resources, such as OneDrive files or Word Documents. This saves users time and effort in creating highly relevant, unique presentations.
How to Enable Microsoft Copilot in PowerPoint
Like the Copilot experience in Microsoft’s other productivity and office apps, Copilot for PowerPoint can deliver many benefits to users. It can save you time producing a first draft of your presentation, designing graphics, and more. Plus, it can stimulate your creativity with various suggestions to enhance your presenting capabilities.
Of course, before you can learn how to use Copilot in PowerPoint effectively, you need to know how to enable access to the tool.
If you’re using Copilot in PowerPoint as an individual, you can access basic Copilot features in the web version of the app with a Copilot Pro subscription for $20 per month per user. There’s nothing to “activate” here. All you need to do is purchase your plan and access PowerPoint on the web.
If you want to use Copilot in PowerPoint in the desktop versions of the app, , you’ll need a subscription to Microsoft 365. Alternatively, if you want enterprise-grade security and advanced features (like Copilot Studio), you’ll need a Copilot for Microsoft 365 subscription. That will cost you $30 per month per user.
Business users will also need an approved Microsoft 365 plan, such as Microsoft 365 E3, E5, Business Basic, Premium, and Standard.
You’ll also need a Microsoft Entra ID and all the relevant app accounts you will use with PowerPoint. This means potentially setting up a OneDrive account (for saving and sharing files), a Teams account for PowerPoint presentations in meetings, and a Microsoft Loop account.
When enabling Copilot for your organization, it is also worth ensuring you have the right security strategies in place. You can find handy guidance on preparing your privacy settings for Copilot here.
How to Use Copilot in PowerPoint: Getting Started
Once you set up your licenses and accounts, learning how to use Copilot in PowerPoint is pretty straightforward. Open a PowerPoint presentation and click on the “Copilot” icon in the “Home” tab of the ribbon at the top of the screen.
The Copilot assistant should load on the right side of your screen, giving you a text box (where you can enter prompts) and a selection of “example prompts” to work with.
Creating a Presentation or Slides with Prompts
If you’re starting from scratch, all you need to do is enter a prompt in the text box. Microsoft recommends giving the app plenty of context and details, such as “Act as an enterprise sales professional, and create a presentation for shareholders about sales figures in the last year. Include sections about customer retention, average order value, and business growth.”
You can paste text from other files and links to online content into the chat box, too, if you want Copilot to include that extra information. Once Copilot generates a presentation for you, you can change the look and style of the whole piece or a slide. You’ll have the option to either make changes manually or use the “Designer” icon to see alternative versions of your slides.
Designing a Presentation with Templates
If you’re struggling to get started with your PowerPoint presentation, it might be worth using a template. Copilot can use the existing themes and templates saved by you (or your organization) to design a presentation for you. To use a template:
- Open an existing presentation with your theme or create a new presentation with a template or theme by clicking File > New.
- Click on the Copilot button in the Home tab
- Edit the presentation by asking Copilot to add a slide, organize your content, summarize slides, or add images.
Creating a PowerPoint Presentation from a File
Another way to learn how to use Copilot in PowerPoint quickly is to design presentations from an existing file. Notably, you can only do this if you have a Copilot for Microsoft 365 license. Currently, the feature isn’t available for those using Copilot Pro.
If you have the right license, you can create a PowerPoint document from a Word document by opening PowerPoint and selecting the Copilot button in the Home tab. Next:
- Click Create Presentation from file
- Choose the Word document you want to draw your content from. If you can’t find it straight away, you can search for the file name.
- Select Send to transfer the document to Copilot
The AI app will then draft a presentation for you using the content in the Word document. You can customize and edit it to suit your needs.
Notably, Microsoft shared a few tips for companies creating PowerPoint presentations from Word documents in Copilot, such as:
- Use Styles in Word: Using “Styles” in Word can help organize your document and assist Copilot in understanding how your document is structured. This will ensure the app can break your content up into comprehensive slides from your presentation. Make sure you structure your content under titles and headers whenever possible.
- Include images: Adding images to your Word document will allow Copilot to add them automatically to your presentation. You can always add images after, or ask Copilot to generate graphics for you if you don’t have any visuals already.
- Use a template: If your company uses a standard template for presentations, it’s a good idea to start with a template before pulling in your Word content. This will ensure you maintain consistency in your branded presentations.
How to Use Copilot in PowerPoint: Optimizing Your Presentation
Now you know how to use Copilot in PowerPoint to create a presentation, you might want to start taking advantage of some of the additional features Copilot offers. Here are some of the ways you can optimize your PowerPoint presentations with Copilot.
Add Slides and Images to Presentations
Copilot makes it easy to add new slides to your PowerPoint presentations in an instant. Just click on the Copilot icon and ask the chatbot to “add a slide about” whatever you want to cover. You can outline exactly what you want to talk about in the slide or ask Copilot to make suggestions.
Users can also add Copilot to add images to a presentation with prompts like “Add an image of a contact center.” The app will go through stock images and select a relevant image for you.
If you’re using Copilot Pro, you can also ask Copilot to “Create an Image” for you using DALL-E 3. For instance, you might ask Copilot to “create an image of a dog in a boat.” Be specific if you’re using this feature, as AI image generation doesn’t always produce amazing results straight away.
Summarize or Organize Your Presentation with Copilot
Sometimes, you might need help making sure your presentation hits all the right notes as quickly as possible. If your current presentation is a little too long, tap the Copilot button and ask the Copilot app to “summarize this presentation”. The bot will create a list of key topics in your presentation and include references to show where it pulled that information from.
You can also ask the app to “Show key slides” that might hold the most important information or “Show action items” that you need to draw attention to at the end of a presentation.
Copilot can also help organize your slides into sections as you create your presentation. Simply ask the app to “organize this presentation,” and it will arrange your content in sections with headings. If you don’t like what the app does, just hit the “Undo” button to restore the previous structure.
Add Your Organization’s Branding to PowerPoint Presentations
If you’re creating presentations for business purposes and using a Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription, you might want to add some specific branding elements. To do this, simply open PowerPoint and create a new presentation from a corporate template in your template library.
Once the PowerPoint app loads, you should see the Copilot button in the ribbon. Tab that, and use prompts to ask Copilot to create a presentation from scratch, from a file, or add a slide. The app will take the theming from your template and add it to your new document.
Notably, you will need to set up an “Organizational Asset Library” for PowerPoint to do this. Microsoft offers a step-by-step guide on how to do this, along with tips for how to optimize your templates here. Make sure you follow Microsoft’s minimum template requirements and that you’re saving your templates in the right format (.potx or .pptx).
It’s also a good idea to create a diverse set of slide layouts for your “Slide Master” collection to give Copilot more freedom when it’s designing presentations for you. Just remember, the more decorative components you add to your presentations, the more cluttered they may become. Keep a close eye on the “accessibility” of your presentations as you design.
Can You Use Copilot in PowerPoint for Mobile?
If you’re wondering how to use Copilot in PowerPoint while you’re on the move, you’re in luck. However, where you can access Copilot will vary depending on your plan. Currently, Copilot Pro customers can only access Copilot in PowerPoint on iPad devices (or Mac and Windows PCs).
Alternatively, if you have a full Copilot for Microsoft 365 license, you can access the AI app through Android and iOS phones, too. Ultimately, you won’t be able to create entire presentations using your mobile device, but you can use Copilot to:
- Access summaries of your presentations: When you open the PowerPoint app on your smartphone, you can tap the “Get Summary from Copilot” button to see a quick overview of your presentation. You can also view references (to see where Copilot got the information from), and click the “Sparkle” icon to access additional prompts.
- View key slides: If you need to draw information from the most important slides in your presentation, hit the Copilot icon and tap the sparkle icon to see prompts. You should see the option to “Show key slides.”
- Ask questions: Open the PowerPoint app, select a deck, and tap the Copilot icon. In the pane that appears, select “Show suggested Q&A.” This will give you a list of questions you might want to ask Copilot. You can also type in your questions.
How to Use Copilot in PowerPoint: Quick Tips
Learning how to use Copilot in PowerPoint is simple enough, but using it effectively can be another matter entirely. Based on our own experiences with the Copilot app in PowerPoint, here are some quick tips for success.
1. Augment your Creativity with Copilot
One of the things we love about Copilot in PowerPoint is its ability to generate ideas for you. If you’re struggling to think of a way to approach a presentation, Copilot can be a great source of inspiration. All you need to do is open Copilot and click the “Design Ideas” button.
This will cause Copilot to examine the content of your existing presentation or the content you’ve added to PowerPoint to offer design and expansion presentations. It might recommend changing your color scheme or altering the order of your slides.
2. Upgrade your Presentation’s Appearance
Finding the right images for a presentation is one of the trickier parts of building a compelling slideshow. Fortunately, Copilot is here to help. Click the “images” button in the Copilot panel, and the AI bot will review your presentation and recommend relevant images.
That can save you time sorting through massive stock image libraries. For instance, if you’re creating a presentation about customer service trends, Copilot might showcase many images of satisfied customers or service representatives. Remember, you can also ask Copilot to create an image using DALL-E 3 if you have a Pro plan.
3. Remember to Edit
Copilot is great at organizing your PowerPoint presentations, giving inspiration, and even generating slides. However, it’s still important to edit and optimize your creations yourself. Fortunately, Copilot in PowerPoint works with the Designer tool. Selecting the Designer icon will allow you to see alternative versions of your presentation instantly.
You can also make manual adjustments yourself, altering the content in your slides, the images, and more to suit your specific needs.
4. Use Copilot to Create Talking Points
Not sure what you should discuss with your stakeholders in your next big meeting? Get Copilot to suggest options for you. Click on “Talking Points” in the Copilot panel, and the system will study the content of your presentation. It can then suggest a range of talking points based on your presentation type.
For instance, for a sales presentation it might suggest talking points such as average order value growth or customer retention rates. In a training presentation might inspire you to talk about the skills your audience can get from the training and their benefits.
5. Customize with Copilot Studio
Microsoft 365 Copilot subscriptions come with access to Copilot Studio, Microsoft’s low-code solution for customizing generative AI apps. With Studio, you can integrate Copilot with other tools and data sources in your organization to help it deliver more relevant suggestions.
You can adjust how Copilot automates tasks for you and leverage your data for recommendations and presentation creations. There are more than 1,000 pre-built connections, so make sure to experiment.
6. Learn How to Prompt Copilot
Finally, making the most of any generative AI solution starts with learning how to talk to an LLM. Prompting can be tricky for beginners, but Microsoft offers recommended prompts in the Copilot panel on every app to help you get started.
You can also find prompt training solutions on the Microsoft website that show you what ingredients to include in your prompts. Experiment with prompting, and make sure you share your findings with your team.
Learn How to Use Copilot in PowerPoint the Right Way
While learning how to use Copilot in PowerPoint is pretty straightforward, there are some crucial steps you’ll need to take to ensure you’re making the most of the app. From choosing the right Copilot plan to making sure you can leverage the features effectively, taking the time to master the Copilot experience will ensure you get the best results.
Remember to stay up to date with the latest updates to Copilot in Microsoft Office apps and other Microsoft tools to ensure you’re taking advantage of new features as they emerge.
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