Lab 2 - Build a presentation from start to finish with Copilot in PowerPoint

Imagine you’re a marketing manager at a company called Contoso. Your team is preparing for an important client meeting where you need to present the company’s strategy for a new Chai Tea product line to be sold in Latin America Your goal is to create a compelling presentation that highlights the product’s features, benefits, and use cases, while ensuring it adheres to the company’s branding standards. You’ve already developed a business plan for this product and want to use that content when preparing for your meeting. You need to collaborate with your team and get the presentation reviewed by your manager before the meeting.

By the end of this Lab, you’ll be able to create a new presentation, based on a Word document, insert an image, edit text, organize the presentation, incorporate corporate branding standards, and send the draft presentation to your manager for review using Copilot in PowerPoint.

Sample file

Throughout this Lab, we’ll craft prompts for Microsoft 365 Copilot that reference this file. You should have already uploaded it to OneDrive during the lab setup process, but if you need to download it again, you can do so here:

Promotion Plan for Chai Tea in Latin America.docx

Exercise 1 - Create a new presentation based on a Word document

Open PowerPoint from your browser by opening the Edge browser and entering +++https://powerpoint.new+++.
On the Home tab of the ribbon, select Copilot (on the right side), then select Create a presentation about topic from the Copilot pane generate a draft presentation.
In the Copilot pane, select the + button, then select the Promotion Plan for Chai Tea in Latin America.docx file from the list. Alternatively, type / followed by the first few letters of the file name in the prompt field to search for it. If the file doesn’t appear, wait a moment for your files to sync, refresh the browser, then try again.
Select the Send button to submit your prompt.
If prompted, Copilot displays a series of clarifying questions. Select the number of slides, the desired tone, the target audience or whether to include visual data elements, selecting Next after each choice and Confirm after the last.
Copilot generates slides and content based on the document. Review the slides in the slide panel. The presentation may display in either the Slide Sorter or Normal view. To switch views, select the View tab.

While this is a great start, you want to personalize the presentation a bit more for your delivery. Let’s see how to improve the content.

Exercise 2 - Ask Copilot to help you create an additional slide

Since our audience includes individuals with varying levels of familiarity with our company and its offerings, let’s add a slide that provides a brief history of chai tea.

If necessary, change the view to Normal. On the View tab, select Normal.
Return to the Home ribbon view.
In the Copilot pane, enter the following prompt:

+++Can you provide a brief history of chai tea?+++

Copilot responds with a great summary of the history of chai tea, sourced from public web sites.

Copilot Chat is great for asking questions, summarizing or researching (web/work) information, but it does not have the capability to edit/shape our presentation.
Navigate to the first slide. On the Home tab, select the New slide with Copilot icon next to New Slide.
In the copilot chat pane, add the following context:

+++the history of chai tea.+++
If prompted, Copilot displays clarifying questions about the slide content. Select your preferred option for each question, then select Confirm after the last.
Review the slide Copilot generated.

Now you’ve added depth to your presentation, and it’s a great way to increase interest from your meeting participants. Let’s look at the presentation now, and see how we can make it even more powerful.

Exercise 3 - Insert an image

While Copilot includes images as it creates slides, you may want to add or edit an image to be more specific to your presentation. You can ask Copilot to include an image from your approved corporate library, provided your administrator has set the appropriate configurations, or generate an image based on an idea you have.

Let’s ask Copilot Chat to create a new image.
Enter the following prompt in the Copilot Chat pane:

+++Create an image featuring a person sipping a warm cup of tea.+++

[!NOTE] Feel free to experiment with your own prompt to generate an image you think would work best for the presentation. The more details you provide, the better.
If prompted, Copilot asks where to place the image in the presentation. Select History slide (slide 2), then select Confirm.

Exercise 4 - Edit the text

As you’re reviewing the presentation, you may decide the text Copilot generated isn’t right for you. Use Copilot to help you refine the text on your slides. For instance, you can type Edit the text on this slide to make it more concise or Make this text more engaging for the reader Let’s see how:

Navigate to the slide containing the text you may want to edit.
Select the text box to modify, then select the Copilot (pen) icon next to it. Enter the following prompt in the dialog that appears:

+++Expand this text to include additional details.+++
Review the suggestions provided by Copilot, then select Keep it to update the selected text.

Exercise 5 - Organize the presentation

As you’re reviewing the presentation, you may find that the topics in your presentation need to be more clearly identified. You can use Copilot in PowerPoint to inject this clarity.

In the Copilot chat pane, select the mode dropdown and select Chat only. Select the Work tab, then enter the following prompt:

+++Give me tips to improve my presentation, both in general and slide-by-slide.+++
Copilot responds, providing general suggestions along with suggestions for each slide. You can use these tips to either manually modify the content in your deck, or use the in-app Copilot features you’ve explored in this exercise to improve your presentation.

And just like that, you’ve all set to impress with a polished presentation.

End of Lab