Copilot in PowerPoint: What It Does Today, What's Coming, and Why It's Only Getting Better
Introduction: 20 Hours of Travel, Zero Filters
Jay Welshofer flew 20 hours to Sofia. He used to carry a military-grade computer on his back to give PowerPoint presentations. He once walked off a stage in front of 14,000 people, broke his nose, and jumped back up covered in blood. After 26 years at Apple and one at Microsoft, he is not here to give you a polished corporate pitch. He is here to show you what Copilot in PowerPoint can actually do — and to answer your questions.
His opening position: Copilot is not here to replace your creativity. It is here to free you from the drudgery so you can focus on what actually matters — your story.
The Four Pillars of Copilot in PowerPoint
Jay groups Copilot's current capabilities into four areas:
Create
Narrative Builder — provide a prompt or point at an existing file (Word doc, PDF, Excel, or even another PowerPoint) and Copilot will generate a full presentation with layouts and speaker notes. It is a starting point, not a finished product — and it will keep improving.
Slide Builder — add a single slide to an existing deck using a prompt. Currently the AI chooses the slide type; more user control is on the way.
Edit
Text rewrite — click any text box and ask Copilot to make it more concise, more formal, or rewrite it with a custom prompt. Coming soon: style-guided rewrites within the text box itself.
Global changes via chat — ask Copilot to change the font across the entire deck in one command.
Speaker notes — generate notes for every slide in one go. Useful for anyone handing a presentation off to someone else to deliver.
Translation — translate the entire deck with one command. Copilot creates a new file and leaves the original untouched.
Brand compliance (sneak peek) — ask Copilot to overhaul the whole presentation to match your template and brand guidelines automatically.
Comprehend
Ask Copilot questions about your own presentation — what are the most important slides, what does this acronym mean, summarise this for me. Useful for quickly getting up to speed on a deck someone has sent you, or stress-testing your own content before you present it.
Suggest
Presentation templates — shown automatically when you open a blank file; more templates shipping regularly.
Slide starters — go beyond a layout by including sample content so users know exactly what to fill in. Enterprises will soon be able to define their own, replacing Microsoft's defaults with company-standard templates.
Contextual suggestions — as you build, Copilot suggests what slide type might come next based on what you have already created.
Q&A Highlights
When will AI-generated images handle text properly? Being actively worked on. Expect more precise, well-rendered text in images — and more consistent style across multiple generated images in the same deck.
Can enterprise designers plug custom master templates into Copilot? Yes — this is exactly where Slide Starters are heading. Designers will be able to build and define their own templates so Copilot uses those first, not Microsoft's defaults.
Will Copilot support VBA or interactive quizzes? Not yet, but code generation capabilities are in development — similar to what the Excel team has done with Python.
What about Morph animations? High on the list. Jay's own marketing team has been "kicking them in the shin" about it.
Will AI plateau? Jay does not think so — at least not before he retires. The investment levels and pace of iteration suggest a long runway still ahead.
Final Thoughts: The Worst It Will Ever Be
Jay repeated it more than once: everything he showed today is the worst Copilot will ever be. The features shipping monthly, the expectations rising just as fast, and a team determined to get out of your way so you can tell better stories. That is the direction of travel — and from someone who has watched presentations evolve from 35mm slide carousels to AI-generated decks, he seems genuinely excited about where it is headed.
Join the Conversation
Which Copilot feature in PowerPoint would make the biggest difference to your workflow — and what do you wish it could already do? Share your thoughts below.
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