Exercise 1, Task 4: Use Copilot in PowerPoint to create an executive presentation

With the strategic communication brief complete and external research in hand, Boulder Innovations’ executive leadership team now needs a clear, visual summary of the AuroraHub initiative. Executives possess limited time and expect succinct, decision-oriented content that highlights priorities, impacts, and next steps, rather than long-form documentation.

As the Communications Manager, you’re tasked with creating an executive presentation that brings together the work you completed thus far. This deck must clearly articulate:

  • Why AuroraHub is being introduced now
  • How it supports Boulder Innovations’ strategic goals
  • What data and external trends support the initiative
  • How the company plans to manage adoption and measure success

Rather than building the presentation slide-by-slide from scratch, you use Copilot in PowerPoint to accelerate the process. Copilot helps transform your written brief and research findings into a cohesive, leadership-ready slide deck, organizing content logically, suggesting clear headlines, and keeping visuals focused on strategic takeaways.

This task demonstrates how Communications professionals can use Copilot not just to draft content, but to package and elevate that content into formats executives rely on for decision-making. By the end of this task, you should have a polished presentation that leadership can use to align stakeholders, secure buy-in, and move forward confidently with the AuroraHub launch.

Using Copilot in PowerPoint

PowerPoint provides two ways to use Copilot: standard Copilot prompts for quickly generating slide content or summaries, and Allow editing in the Copilot pane for making direct, in-place edits to slides, layouts, and presentation structure.

  • You should use Copilot’s standard prompts in PowerPoint when you want to draft slides quickly, summarize content, or generate speaker notes without changing the structure of the deck. When using the Copilot pane, if you enter a prompt without selecting Allow editing, Copilot responds in a chat-style mode that generates suggestions or content separately, rather than making direct, in-place changes to the presentation.

  • You should use Allow editing when you want Copilot to work directly in the presentation, such as reorganizing slides, refining slide text, improving layouts, or making iterative edits across multiple slides. Allow editing is optimized for in-place presentation work, so it understands slide structure and can apply changes directly to the deck, rather than just suggesting content in a separate response.

In summary, use chat-style Copilot for thinking and generating ideas; use Allow editing for hands-on editing inside the file. Copilot typically previews slide or layout changes and, once you confirm, it applies those changes directly to the slide deck rather than expecting the user to explicitly apply them through copy and paste.

This task uses the Allow editing functionality.

Perform the following steps to complete this task:

  1. In your web browser, go to the Microsoft Copilot home page, select the App Launcher (grid icon) in the top left corner of the page, select More Apps, and then select PowerPoint from the list of apps that appears.

  2. In PowerPoint for the web, create a blank presentation.

  3. Select the Copilot icon in the bottom-right corner of the PowerPoint window to open the Copilot pane.

  4. In the Copilot pane, select the + (Add content) sign below the prompt field and open the Add work content file picker. Search for and select the AuroraHub strategic communication brief that you created in Task 1 and the PDF summary (trend synthesis) that you created in Task 2, both of which were stored in your OneDrive.

  5. Verify the dropdown above the prompt field is set to Allow editing. This ensures Copilot can make direct, in-place edits to the presentation. If you see Chat only selected, select the dropdown and choose Allow editing.

  6. In the Copilot prompt, ask Copilot to generate an executive leadership slide presentation based on the two attached files. The presentation should cover the following topics: Title + AuroraHub purpose, External trends and implications, Internal engagement insights (summaries only; no raw charts), Launch plan and change management pillars, Safety messaging and mobile access, and Call to action for VPs and site leads.

  7. If Copilot asks a series of questions related to the presentation, select the answers that you want it to apply. Select the Confirm button once you finish answering the questions. It might also ask a second series of questions, one of which might be to select a slide template. Keep in mind that if you don’t select a template, Copilot presents text on plain white slides. Again, select the answers that you want it to apply, or select Skip all if you want Copilot to use its best judgment.

  8. Copilot in PowerPoint uses this information to generate a list of slides, which might take a few minutes.

  9. During our testing, we experienced different results regarding slide generation. Copilot sometimes generated the slides automatically, with no further confirmation needed. Other times, it provided an outline of the slides in the Copilot chat pane, and it suggested several options as to how it could proceed. If you experience the latter scenario, tell it to create the slides based on the outline. In either case, it typically took several minutes for Copilot to generate the slides.

  10. Review the list of slides. You feel that the slide covering internal engagement insights could use a better graphic than the one that Copilot initially included on the slide. Select this slide and then in the Copilot pane, ask Copilot to create a visual for this slide that shows how AuroraHub connects leadership, frontline employees, and engagement data.

  11. Review the result. You also feel that the slide covering the launch plan could use a better diagram. Select this slide and then ask Copilot to create an adoption timeline or phased rollout diagram and then replace the existing diagram on this slide with the new one that it creates.

  12. Review the result. Now select the slide regarding unifying internal communications. In the Copilot prompt, tell it that this slide is too text-heavy for an executive-level presentation. Ask it to rewrite the slide content.

  13. Review the rewritten text. If Copilot offers any suggestions, review them and submit any that are of interest to you.