Thanks to a rich template library, themes, animations, and eye-catching layouts, we are long past the days of creating a PowerPoint presentation from scratch. As someone who frequently needs to create visually appealing pitches, I'm always on the lookout for tools that can speed up the entire process and streamline my workflow. Here is where I came across Copilot and Designer - Microsoft's AI-powered tools integrated directly into PowerPoint.
I decided to put Microsoft's tools to the ultimate test by creating an entire presentation from start to finish using only Copilot and Designer. In this post, I will share my honest assessment of how Copilot and Designer impacted my presentation creation process.
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Accessing Copilot and Designer in PowerPoint: Requirements
Before we start, let's go over the prerequisites first. Copilot and Designer are available on PowerPoint web and desktop apps on Windows and Mac. They are not accessible on PowerPoint mobile and tablet apps.
Designer (previously known as Design Ideas) is a part of your standard Microsoft 365 subscription. It suggests several designs based on your text and images. It is available under the Home and Design tabs in PowerPoint.
As for unlocking Copilot in PowerPoint, you must purchase a separate Copilot Pro subscription from Microsoft. It comes with a free month's trial, and after that, the pricing starts at $20 per month. Your active subscription unlocks Copilot in other Microsoft 365 apps, including OneNote, Outlook, Word, Excel, and even OneDrive. Once you sign up for a Copilot Pro subscription, the chatbot should appear under the Home tab, as shown in the screenshot above.
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Leveraging AI in PowerPoint
Now that we have moved past the basics, let's check out both tools in action. In the example below, my goal was to create a presentation on general financial literacy that covers the basics of finance like budgeting, saving, investing, managing debt, financial goals, planning, the power of compound interest, its impact on long-term wealth building, and the importance of emergency funds.
Let's start our journey with Copilot first.
Generate slides using a text prompt
While PowerPoint comes with dozens of templates, I started with a blank presentation.
Open PowerPoint on the desktop and create a blank presentation. Click the small Copilot button at the top and select Create a presentation about.
It opens a dedicated Copilot dialog box where you need to enter the text prompt. Here is where it gets tricky. You need to be astute and quite descriptive with your prompts to get the desired results. For this presentation, I entered the text below.
Understanding personal finance basics with financial goals and planning, the power of compound interest, and the importance of emergency funds
Copilot quickly generates talking points for your presentation. You can delete a specific section, rearrange it using the six-dot menu, and give your overall feedback.
Once you are satisfied with the results, click Generate slides to convert them into actual slides.
Copilot starts generating slides based on your talking points and shows all the slides under the relevant headers.
You can quickly glance over them, then select Keep it to import them into your presentation.
And that's it. In the example above, Copilot generated 15 slides with an introduction and conclusion. The AI chatbot also adds relevant images and animations throughout the slides to make your presentation more engaging. Check out the little star icon beside each slide that represents active animation.
Copilot also adds required speaker notes below each slide to help you during live presentations. Neat, isn't it?
Your slides are still AI-generated, and accuracy may take a hit with specific complex subjects. I would always recommend checking the content once before you distribute it.
Change slide designs with Designer
Now, it's time to see the Designer in action. While Copilot did a good job with generating slides, I'm not really fond of the introduction slide. Let's use Designer to change its entire look with a single click.
Open the PowerPoint presentation and click the slide you want to change with Designer. Select Designer in the top-right corner.
Check the relevant suggestions from the sidebar that uses your existing content and images. Select a slide you want to use and you are good to go. Check out the selected slide in the screenshot below, which surely looks better than the one above.
Similarly, I selected the third slide which was quite bland, opened Designer, and checked out the suggestions.
I picked a better slide with a cool-looking background. You can use Designer to change all the required slides and elevate your presentation in no time.
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Create and insert images using Copilot
Now, I would like to add a neat image into one of the slides called 'The Power of Compound Interest.' Instead of browsing the web as I would have done in the past, I quickly summoned Copilot and asked it to generate an image based on a text prompt. Here's how.
Open a relevant slide and select Copilot in the top-right corner. Enter the text prompt below.
Generate an image of A piggy bank overflowing with coins and bills, showcasing the importance of growing money with compound interest.
Copilot uses Microsoft Designer to generate four options. Select the one you like and click Insert.
Check out the final slide below. It's just one example of an image generated by Copilot. The possibilities are endless here.
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PowerPoint just got a whole lot smarter
My presentation creation journey with Copilot and Designer was nothing short of eye-opening. Although there is a learning curve with text prompts and some occasional frustration, I was ultimately impressed with the potential of these tools to save significant time and effort.
Copilot and Designer aren't without their limitations, though. There were instances where the AI's suggestions missed the mark, requiring manual fine-tuning. Overall, I'm excited to see how Copilot and Designer will evolve and empower users to create more engaging presentations. Aside from PowerPoint, your Copilot Pro subscription unlocks the AI assistant in other Microsoft 365 apps as well. Check our dedicated post to read about my experiment with Copilot in Microsoft's note-taking app - OneNote.
