Microsoft is add some new capabilities of Copilot in PowerPoint, making it easier to build compelling, on-brand presentations quickly. With features like Narrative Builder, presentation translation, and seamless integration of organizational assets, creating polished decks is set to become faster and more inclusive. Here are the key updates:
Narrative Builder: The most substantial update, launching in January 2025, is a new Narrative Builder that can transform existing documents into polished presentations—with branded designs, speaker notes, animations and transitions. It will essentially do the heavy lifting that typically requires hours of human effort.
"Creating compelling presentations with the right story, information, and branding can be challenging," notes Microsoft in its announcement. The Narrative Builder aims to solve this by allowing users to feed it existing documents, including encrypted files, and steering the AI toward creating a cohesive narrative rather than just summarizing content.
Presentation Translation: PowerPoint users will soon be able to translate entire presentations into one of 40 languages while maintaining the design and layout.
For organizations running international training programs or managing global teams, this could significantly reduce the time and resources typically required for multilingual content creation. This will be available on the web version in December and for PC and Mac by January 2025.
Brand Library Support: For those who need their presentations on-brand, Copilot will support images stored in SharePoint Organization Asset Library and Templafy. Users can easily integrate company-approved visuals into their slides without additional manual effort. The system will even track image sources in speaker notes so users can include proper attribution and usage rights. This feature will be generally available in Q1 of 2025.
Big Picture: PowerPoint Copilot's new features allow users to draft presentations in minutes rather than hours, improve accessibility across global teams, and ensure that content remains polished and brand-consistent.
For organizations already investing in Microsoft 365 Copilot, these features represent a significant enhancement to their existing toolkit. However, the real test will come when users begin implementing these tools in real-world scenarios, particularly in highly regulated industries where accuracy and compliance are paramount.