Artificial Intelligence in Microsoft 365 – Part 1: Microsoft PowerPoint

In January 2024 Microsoft Copilot became available for SMEs in Switzerland and makes everyday work easier with intelligent assistance functions. However, an additional add-on is required to access these functions. But even without this add-on, you can benefit from AI in Microsoft tools. The history of artificial intelligence and automation in Microsoft applications goes back much further. Long before the Copilot launch, some AI functions were integrated to make work easier. In this article, we take a look at the early AI integrations that are still available and relevant today. In the first part, we look at the PowerPoint presentation suite.

The challenges of presentations

Presentations can be a real challenge—especially when important business decisions are imminent. It's challenging to convey the right messages in the best possible way on PowerPoint slides. And even once the slides are ready and feedback from all relevant stakeholders has been incorporated, the challenge of delivering the presentation remains. The choice of words, timing, and authenticity of the "live performance" play a crucial role in whether the core messages truly resonate with the audience.

But help is at hand: PowerPoint offers a range of features powered by artificial intelligence to simplify the entire presentation process. From simply creating slides to practicing the presentation to delivering an effective presentation – these intelligent tools help you structure content specifically, optimize design, and improve timing. And we'll show you how.

Create presentations in PowerPoint more easily with the Designer

The Designer feature in PowerPoint simplifies the creation of presentations by analyzing slide content and automatically offering attractive design suggestions. In April 2019, Microsoft announced that one trillion slides had already been created using the Designer. One example is a presentation about record-breaking tennis player and Swiss national hero Roger Federer. After the user starts a new presentation, adds a title, and places an image on the title slide, the Designer begins working in the background. After just a few seconds, a sidebar opens with various design suggestions.

You can adopt one of these designs with just one click. What's particularly impressive is that the AI ​​in PowerPoint recognizes Roger Federer's face in the picture and takes this into account when designing the layout.

If the user has not inserted an image, the PowerPoint designer automatically suggests suitable images, taking into account key words in the title, such as "tennis". The illustrations in the suggested layouts then include elements such as tennis balls, nets, rackets and more.



PowerPoint AI is also continuously evolving: While German terms such as “Flugzeuge” (airplanes) were not yet recognized in 2020, the automatic image search now works seamlessly with terms from the German vocabulary.

Practice giving presentations with the Presenter Coach

The Presenter Coach is a practical AI trainer who offers valuable support when practicing presentations. Thanks to its ability to recognize and analyze language, it gives helpful tips to optimize the presentation. The Presenter Coach pays particular attention to the following aspects:

• Pace of speech
  To help listeners better absorb the content, the Presenter Coach analyzes the speed of speech. He gives feedback on whether a faster or slower speaking pace is recommended.
• Choice of words
  When choosing words, the coach focuses on two points: Firstly, he identifies unnecessary filler words, and secondly, he makes suggestions for optimizing formulations in order to make the language clearer and more precise.
• Read slide text
  A common problem with presentations is the monotonous reading of slide texts, which can significantly weaken the impact of a presentation. The Presenter Coach recognizes this during the exercise and points out to the presenter when the eyes are too focused on the slides and content is being read out 1:1.

At the end of the training session, the speaker-coach summarizes the insights gained.

This AI function is only available in PowerPoint if you change the language from PowerPoint to English. However, you can still hold your presentation in German, as the PowerPoint AI recognizes different languages ​​and provides appropriate feedback. However, there is still room for improvement here: While aspects such as tempo, filler words and tone are reliably analyzed in German and English, the recognition of slide text reading does not work optimally in German. In English, however, this function works flawlessly. Repetitive language is only recognized to a limited extent in both German and English.

Try it yourself! To change the language, follow these steps: Navigate to File > Options > Language, choose English , click Set as preferred and then on OKYou must then close and reopen PowerPoint for the change to take effect. You will then find the Presenter Coach under the tab Slide show. Simply select the option Rehearse with Coach to get started.

Present effectively with automatic subtitles

The fact that speech recognition in Office 365 has matured is shown not only by the speaker coach, but also by the automatically generated subtitles. In presentation mode, PowerPoint listens and transcribes the spoken word as subtitles on the slides. The subtitles can be set via the Slide Show tab under Subtitles, or can be easily switched on and off in the speaker view. It is important that the speaker speaks clearly and that the language is set correctly in the subtitle settings.

Since the speaker language and the subtitle language can be set independently of each other, PowerPoint can even act as a translator!

Learn more about Artificial Intelligence in Microsoft Excel in Part 2. The Part 3 deals with Microsoft Word in the same style.

Have you discovered AI for yourself and can't get enough? Then find out what you can do with Microsoft Copilot can achieve even more.