PowerPoint users, get ready to revolutionize the way you create presentations! Microsoft Copilot is here, bringing the power of AI directly into PowerPoint to help you generate slides, design presentations, extract text, and even create images with ease. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know about Copilot in PowerPoint — from how to get it, to testing its features, and even customizing it with your own PowerPoint templates.
If you’re eager to learn how this AI assistant can transform your PowerPoint workflow and save you hours of work, this article is for you. We’ll cover step-by-step instructions, practical tips, and useful insights to help you get the most out of Copilot.
Table of Contents
- How to Get Microsoft Copilot in PowerPoint
- Creating Presentations with Copilot
- Generating Slides from Reference Files
- Exploring Copilot’s Additional Functions
- Generating Images with Copilot
- Using Custom PowerPoint Templates with Copilot
- Fixing Animation Conflicts with VBA
- Final Thoughts and Future of Copilot in PowerPoint
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
How to Get Microsoft Copilot in PowerPoint
Getting started with Microsoft Copilot in PowerPoint is relatively straightforward, but there are some important licensing details and subscription plans to understand before you dive in.
Subscription Plans and Pricing
When searching for Copilot, the first step is visiting the official Microsoft website to explore available plans. Microsoft offers three main types of Copilot subscriptions:
- Business Plan
- Enterprise Plan
- Personal Plan
While many users might prefer the personal plan for cost and simplicity, certain advanced Copilot features—such as creating a presentation directly from a file—are only available in the business subscription.
In this case, the business plan costs around $30 per month just for the Copilot feature itself. However, this plan does not include licenses for Microsoft 365 apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, which require a separate subscription.
Therefore, to fully utilize Copilot in PowerPoint, you’ll need:
- A Microsoft 365 Business Plan for the Office apps ($15 per month)
- A Microsoft 365 Copilot Business Plan ($30 per month)
This totals about $45 per month, which may seem expensive but is the price to pay for access to the latest AI-powered productivity tools.
Installing and Updating PowerPoint for Copilot
Once you have the subscriptions in place, you need to update your PowerPoint to the latest version to see the Copilot interface.
Here’s how to update:
- Open PowerPoint and go to File > Account.
- Click the Update Now button to ensure your app is up to date.
- Also click Update License if available to refresh your subscription status.
- Restart PowerPoint to see the new Copilot buttons.
After updating, you should see two new Copilot buttons in your PowerPoint interface, which allow you to interact with the AI assistant in different ways.
Creating Presentations with Copilot
One of Copilot’s most impressive features is its ability to generate entire presentations based on a simple prompt. This can save you hours of manual slide creation and design.
Using the Copilot Prompt Window
Clicking the first Copilot button opens a large prompt window where you can type your request. For example, you can ask Copilot to create a presentation about the use of AI for designing presentations. You can also attach reference files to guide the AI, although we’ll test this feature separately.
After entering your prompt, hit the arrow to submit, and Copilot will generate an outline view of the presentation showing the title and section headings. This outline is interactive — you can drag sections to reorder them or add more topics.
Generating Slides from the Outline
Once you’re happy with the outline, click Generate Slides to have Copilot create all the slides for you. The process includes adding slide titles, content, and applying a theme automatically.
Copilot typically lands you in the slide sorter view, which displays all slides in a bird’s eye view. This makes it easy to get a quick overview of the entire presentation structure.
Reviewing the Generated Presentation
Double-clicking any slide takes you into normal view, where you can see the slide content and notes generated by Copilot. The notes provide additional context or speaker guidance, which is a helpful touch.
During slideshow mode, animations and slide transitions are often included. For instance, the first slide may feature fade transitions and text animations like floating text boxes, along with AI-generated images that visually complement the content.
While the design is typically simple—often with images on one side and text on the other—the speed and ease of generation make Copilot a powerful tool for rapid presentation creation.
Generating Slides from Reference Files
Another standout capability is creating presentations directly from reference documents, such as Word files.
Preparing Your Reference File
For this demonstration, the presenter used a Word document created with Copilot itself, containing:
- Images
- Tables
- Charts (as images, not editable Excel charts)
- Over 1,200 words of content
This file serves as a comprehensive source from which Copilot can generate relevant slides.
Replacing the Current Presentation
In PowerPoint, click the Replace with New Presentation button, then select your reference file. Copilot automatically detects the file and you can add more files if needed.
Note: Using this function will completely replace your current presentation, so save any work beforehand.
Slide Generation and Content Extraction
Copilot will again generate a structured outline with sections and references to your document’s footnotes.
After generating slides, you might notice different slide designs and themes depending on the presentation topic, showing Copilot’s adaptability.
In this case, Copilot successfully extracted tables from the Word document and inserted them as editable tables in PowerPoint. Unfortunately, charts embedded as images remain non-editable.
This feature is excellent for quickly turning detailed documents into presentations without manually copying content.
Exploring Copilot’s Additional Functions
Beyond slide generation, Copilot offers several handy tools to enhance your PowerPoint experience.
Summarizing Presentation Content
You can ask Copilot to extract key information or summarize your entire presentation. This is especially useful for creating executive summaries or quick overviews.
Simply type a prompt like “Summarize this presentation”, and Copilot will provide a concise summary of the content.
General Questions and Advice
Copilot can also answer general questions unrelated to the slide content. For example, you might ask about the readable font size for presentations, and Copilot will suggest appropriate sizes for titles, body text, and more.
This makes Copilot a smart assistant not just for content generation but also for presentation best practices.
Extracting Text from Images
One particularly useful feature is Copilot’s ability to extract text from images. This works well for photos of handwritten notes, screenshots, or any image containing readable text.
Just paste the image into PowerPoint and ask Copilot to extract the text. It will analyze the image and return the text content for easy editing.
Generating Images with Copilot
Copilot also integrates with Microsoft Designer to generate custom images based on prompts.
Using the Visual Creator Agent
By clicking on Chat with an Agent and selecting Visual Creator Agent, you can ask Copilot to create images for you.
For example, asking “What if PowerPoint was a superhero? How would that superhero look like?” prompts Copilot to generate multiple superhero-themed images representing PowerPoint.
You can insert these images into your slides directly, enhancing your presentation with unique visuals.
Customizing Image Styles
You can even ask Copilot to recreate images in different artistic styles, such as origami style, to fit your presentation’s theme or branding.
This feature opens new creative possibilities for visual storytelling within PowerPoint.
Using Custom PowerPoint Templates with Copilot
Many companies and professionals use custom PowerPoint templates with branded colors, logos, and styles. Naturally, you want Copilot to generate slides that match your brand identity.
How Copilot Chooses Slide Designs
By default, Copilot selects slide designs and themes automatically based on presentation topics, which may not align with your custom template.
However, Microsoft provides guidelines and a starter template to help you create custom PowerPoint templates optimized for Copilot.
Key Template Requirements
To make your template Copilot-friendly, you should:
- Name slide layouts with specific keywords like Title, Agenda, Section, Content, Conclusion.
- Include multiple slide layouts for each category, with different placeholder sizes to allow Copilot to pick the best fit.
The official Microsoft article on creating custom templates for Copilot provides detailed instructions and a free starter template.
Personal Experience with a Custom Template
The presenter created a custom green-themed template with gradients and animated bubbles in the background, designed to work seamlessly with Copilot.
This free template is available as a bonus in the PowerPoint Animation Mastery course on the presenter’s website.
Generating Slides with Your Custom Template
Using the Replace with New Presentation command in Copilot, you can generate slides that follow your custom template’s design.
Keep in mind that animations added in the Slide Master view may clash with those Copilot adds in normal view, causing double animations on some slides.
We’ll cover how to fix this issue in the next section.
Fixing Animation Conflicts with VBA
If you notice double flickering or overlapping animations due to Copilot adding animations on top of your Slide Master animations, you can fix this manually or automate the process with VBA code.
Manual Animation Cleanup
- Open the Animation Pane in PowerPoint.
- Identify animations added in the normal view (usually marked with a zero).
- Delete those animations, leaving only the Slide Master animations.
Automating with VBA
You can ask Copilot itself to generate VBA code that deletes all animations from the normal view, preserving only the Slide Master animations.
Here’s a quick walkthrough:
- Ask Copilot to write VBA code to delete normal view animations.
- Copy the code and open the Developer tab in PowerPoint.
- Open Visual Basic, insert a new module, and paste the code.
- Close Visual Basic and return to your presentation.
- Run the macro from the Macros menu.
This will clean up all the extra animations in one go.
Final Thoughts and Future of Copilot in PowerPoint
Overall, using Microsoft Copilot in PowerPoint is a fascinating experience. It dramatically speeds up the presentation creation process by generating structured slides, content, animations, and images based on simple prompts.
While the generated presentations look clean and professional, they tend to be basic in design and don’t yet incorporate advanced PowerPoint features like infographics, slide zooms, or morph transitions.
The technology is still evolving, and it will be exciting to see how Copilot improves and integrates more PowerPoint functionalities over time.
For now, Copilot serves as a powerful assistant that can save you time, spark creativity, and help you focus on refining your presentation narrative.
Would you consider incorporating Copilot into your PowerPoint workflow? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
1. What is Microsoft Copilot in PowerPoint?
Microsoft Copilot is an AI-powered assistant integrated into PowerPoint that helps users generate presentations, create slides from prompts or reference files, extract text from images, and create custom images, all using natural language commands.
2. How do I get Copilot in PowerPoint?
You need to subscribe to the Microsoft 365 Copilot Business Plan (approx. $30/month) and have a Microsoft 365 Business Plan for Office apps (approx. $15/month). After subscribing, update PowerPoint to the latest version to see Copilot features.
3. Can Copilot create presentations from existing documents?
Yes, Copilot can generate slides directly from Word documents or other reference files, extracting text, tables, and images to create structured presentations.
4. Does Copilot support custom PowerPoint templates?
Yes, but your template must be optimized for Copilot by naming slide layouts with specific keywords and providing multiple variations. Microsoft offers guidelines and a starter template to help with this.
5. Can Copilot generate images for my slides?
Yes, using the Visual Creator Agent, Copilot can generate images based on your prompts, including options to customize the style such as origami or realistic.
6. How do I fix animation conflicts between Copilot and my custom template?
Copilot may add animations in normal view that overlap with your Slide Master animations. You can delete these manually or use a VBA macro to remove all normal view animations.
7. Is Copilot suitable for all PowerPoint users?
Copilot is best suited for business users with access to Microsoft 365 subscriptions. It’s ideal for users who want to speed up presentation creation and are comfortable exploring new AI-powered tools.
8. Does Copilot replace the need for manual slide design?
Not entirely. Copilot provides a solid starting point with content and basic design, but manual refinement is often necessary for complex presentations or highly customized designs.
9. Can I use Copilot with a personal Microsoft 365 subscription?
Some Copilot features require a business subscription, especially advanced functions like creating presentations from files. The personal plan may have limited functionality.
10. Where can I learn more about creating Copilot-optimized templates?
Microsoft’s official article on TechCommunity provides detailed instructions and a free starter template: Creating Custom Templates for Copilot.
