How to create a PowerPoint with Copilot (using your company template)

Watch the whole workflow in seven minutes

In the video I build an executive summary of employee engagement data for a leadership team, from blank chat to finished slides in the company template.

The full transcript is further down the page.

Can Copilot create a PowerPoint presentation?

Yes. There are two ways. You can open PowerPoint, select Copilot and ask it to create a presentation about a topic. That is fast, but you get Copilot’s structure and Copilot’s guesses about what matters. Or you can plan the content in Copilot chat first, save it as a Word document and ask Copilot in PowerPoint to build the deck from that file in your company template. The second way takes a few more minutes and gives you a presentation you can stand behind. That is the method in this guide.

1. 1. Copilot chatGoal, audience, data. Outline and analysis in text.
2. 2. WordClean up the outline. Headings become slide titles.
3. 3. PowerPointWord file plus company template. Copilot builds the deck.

What do you need before you start?

You need three things: your data or notes, your company’s PowerPoint template (a .potx or .pptx file) and the right Copilot license. The planning part works with Copilot Chat. The part where PowerPoint builds slides from your file in your template needs a paid license.

Checked against Microsoft’s support pages on 19 October 2026. Microsoft has renamed Microsoft 365 Copilot to Microsoft Copilot, but license pages still use both names.

How to create a PowerPoint with Copilot, step by step

Seven steps. The prompts are written so you can copy them and change the parts in brackets.

Step 1: Open Copilot and choose the model

Start in Copilot chat, not in PowerPoint. Use the work version, signed in with your work account, so your data stays under your organization’s protection. If your version has a model picker, choose the strongest model you have access to. In the video I pick the model at the top left before I write anything.

Step 2: Describe the goal, the audience and ask for an outline only

Tell Copilot what the presentation is for, who will see it and how long you have. Then ask for the outline in text and nothing else. Without it, Copilot decides the story for you and the deck tends to look generic. I dictate this part instead of typing.

I want to create a PowerPoint presentation that is an executive summary of our [employee engagement survey].

The audience is [our executive team] and I have [10] minutes. I want a short, visual overview that is easy to understand, with a clear analysis of what matters most for them.

Avoid death by PowerPoint: few words per slide and simple charts that are easy to read.

Before you do anything else, give me only the outline of the presentation, in text. Do not create any slides yet. My data is attached.

Attach or paste your data in the same message. In the video I use an employee engagement survey, but the method works the same for a quarterly review, a project status or a board update.

Step 3: Ask for the analysis, slide by slide

A good outline is not enough. Ask Copilot to analyze the data and write out what goes on each slide, still in text. In the video Copilot proposed six slides for ten minutes.

Good outline, and [10] minutes works. Now analyze all of the data and go slide by slide, still in text only.

For each slide, give me the headline, the one message the audience should remember, the numbers to show and the type of chart.

Step 4: Check the analysis and edit one slide at a time

Read it as if you were the executive who will see it. Are the numbers right? Is the order right? Changing text here takes seconds; changing finished slides takes much longer. Give feedback per slide:

Slide 2: lead with the three teams where engagement dropped the most.
Slide 4: cut the text to one sentence and show the trend as a line chart.
Slide 6: end with two decisions we need from the executive team.

Copilot can misread data or draw a conclusion your data does not support. Check every number against the source before you move on.

Step 5: Paste the outline into Word and clean it up

Copy the final outline into a new Word document. Remove anything that should not end up on a slide. In my recording, my personal custom instructions had added a joke about Norway that I had to delete. Use Word’s heading styles for slide titles: Microsoft says heading styles help Copilot understand the structure of the document. Save the file in OneDrive or SharePoint so Copilot in PowerPoint can find it. Microsoft recommends keeping the document under 24 MB.

Step 6: In PowerPoint, reference the Word file and attach your template

Open PowerPoint and select the Copilot button, at the bottom right of the slide or on the Home tab. Select the paperclip or type / to pick your Word document. Then attach your company template, or drag it into the Copilot pane, and send:

Create a presentation based on [Employee engagement summary outline].

Follow our brand guidelines and use the attached template for colors, fonts and layouts. Keep one message per slide and add speaker notes.

If your organization has set up a brand kit, select + and then Select brand instead of attaching the template. Copilot then uses the kit’s approved templates, colors, fonts and assets.

Step 7: Review the deck and fix what is off

Copilot builds the slides in your template. In my test the template, colors and structure were right, but a couple of layouts were a bit wonky and needed a manual fix. Check every chart against your data, shorten text that does not fit and read the speaker notes before you present. Microsoft also says the output should be reviewed and edited by a person.

Get Copilot training for your teamOr book 25 minutes in my calendar

Why plan the outline before you make slides?

Because text is cheap to change and slides are not. When you ask Copilot in PowerPoint to build a deck straight from a topic, it decides the story, the order and which numbers matter. You then spend your time fixing slides one by one. When you plan in chat first, you check the structure, the analysis and the key messages while they are still plain text, where one sentence of feedback rewrites a whole slide. The Word document then does three jobs at once. It is the input Copilot in PowerPoint builds from, a record of what you decided to say and a draft of your speaker notes. It also separates thinking from formatting: the chat handles the content and PowerPoint handles the design, which is what each of them does best. The same document can be reused next quarter with new data.

How do you make Copilot follow your company template?

Start from your company template or attach it in the prompt, as in step 6. Microsoft’s own advice is to start with your organization’s standard template so Copilot keeps its theme and design. If your organization uses brand kits, select + and Select brand in the Copilot pane.

When the result still looks off, the template is usually the problem, not the prompt. According to Microsoft, Copilot relies mainly on the sample slides in a template and only secondarily on its layouts. Things the person who owns your template can fix:

• Add sample slides with varied layouts. Title, agenda, section header, content, chart, timeline and closing slides, with light, medium and heavy amounts of content. Without enough sample slides Copilot falls back to the Slide Master and the result gets worse.
• Use placeholders, not text boxes. Insert them through Slide Master and keep them clear of other objects. Copilot reads the placeholder type, position and size.
• Set theme colors and fonts in the template. Define them in Slide Master instead of formatting text by hand.
• Remove instructions from the template. Text like “Insert your headline here” ends up in your slides.
• Build the template in desktop PowerPoint. Microsoft recommends Windows or Mac, not the web version.

Brand kits are set up in the Microsoft Copilot app under Create, More, Brand kits, where you upload a .potx or .pptx file. Ask whoever owns your templates or IT whether one exists.

Copilot in PowerPoint not working? Common problems

The Copilot button is missing in PowerPoint

Check that you are signed in with your work account and that a paid Copilot license is assigned to it. With only Copilot Chat you can ask questions about the open presentation, but you cannot create a presentation from a file. Try PowerPoint on the web to rule out an old desktop version. If it is still missing, ask IT: Copilot can be turned off by policy, and Office installations on slower update channels get new Copilot features later.

Copilot ignores the template

Start from the template file, or use a brand kit, instead of only describing your brand in words. Then look at the template itself, as described above. A template with one or two sample slides gives Copilot little to work with.

The slides look crowded or wonky

Usually too much text per slide in the outline. Ask Copilot in chat to cut each slide to one message and a maximum of a few short lines, then rebuild. Fix the last few layouts by hand. It is faster than prompting your way to perfection.

The numbers are wrong

Copilot can misread data. That is why the analysis happens in step 3 and 4, in text, where you can check it. Never present a chart you have not compared against the source.

Something strange ended up in the outline

Check your custom instructions and memory settings in Copilot. They follow you into every chat. Mine added a joke about Norway in the middle of an executive summary.

Is a Copilot license worth it for PowerPoint?

If you build presentations regularly, almost certainly. My rule of thumb: if you make more than a couple of real presentations a year, the time saved covers the license. The paid license is also what gives Copilot access to your files in Word, Outlook and Teams, so PowerPoint is only one part of what you pay for.

Prices from Microsoft’s pricing pages, checked 19 October 2026. Copilot Business is an add-on to Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Standard or Premium.

Comparing Copilot with ChatGPT for your organization? See Copilot eller ChatGPT (in Swedish) and Which AI tool is best for HR?

Can you do this with other AI tools?

Yes. The method of planning first and building second works in Claude and ChatGPT too. The difference is that Copilot builds the slides inside PowerPoint with your template, which matters if your organization runs on Microsoft 365. For the Claude and ChatGPT version, read How to create a PowerPoint presentation with AI.

Copilot training for your organization

Most organizations I meet already have Copilot. What they lack is people who know how to use it in their own work. People change how they work by practicing on real tasks, so that is what my training is built on. I run Copilot training built on your tasks, your templates and your rules for data, so people leave with workflows like this one that they can use the next morning.

• Half-day workshop, about three hours, from 24,900 SEK excluding VAT and travel. Your people practice on their own tasks in the tools you have approved.
• Series for larger groups, grouped by department so colleagues keep working together afterwards.
• In English or Swedish, on site in Sweden and Europe or online.

An example with a name. Mediemyndigheten, the Swedish Agency for the Media, had AI guidelines and access to Copilot, and wanted every employee to start using the tools in their work. With my colleagues at humAIn Academy, we ran three two-hour sessions for five groups, about 80 employees, grouped by department so colleagues could keep working together afterwards. Managers had two sessions of their own on change management and on leading people who use AI.

What participants say

From the evaluation of my Copilot session on 7 September 2026, 238 responses, average 4.3 of 5 on whether participants can use AI in their work afterwards. Quotes translated from Swedish and published with consent.

“Putting 1.5 hours into the training can save many hours of work.”

“Johannes is great. Simple, easy-going and value-creating.”

Ask about Copilot trainingOr book 25 minutes in my calendar

Frequently asked questions

Can Copilot create a PowerPoint presentation?

Yes. Copilot in PowerPoint can create a presentation from a prompt or from a file such as a Word document or a PDF. For the best result, plan the outline and analysis in Copilot chat first, save it in Word, and ask Copilot in PowerPoint to build the deck from that file in your company template. Creating a presentation from a file needs a paid Microsoft Copilot license.

How do I make Copilot use my company template?

Start from your company template or attach the template file in your prompt and ask Copilot to follow it. If your organization has a brand kit, select + and Select brand in the Copilot pane. Copilot relies mainly on the template’s sample slides, so a template with varied sample slides and proper placeholders gives much better results.

Can Copilot create a PowerPoint from a Word document?

Yes. In PowerPoint, open Copilot, select the paperclip or type / and pick the Word document, then ask Copilot to create a presentation from it. Use heading styles in Word so Copilot understands the structure. Microsoft says it works best with documents smaller than 24 MB. With a work license you can also use a PDF.

Do I need a paid license to use Copilot in PowerPoint?

For creating slides, yes. Copilot Chat comes at no extra cost with eligible Microsoft 365 plans and lets you plan the outline and ask questions about an open presentation. Creating a presentation from a file and using your organization’s branding needs a paid Microsoft Copilot license, $30 per user per month, or Copilot Business at $21 for organizations with up to 300 users.

Why is Copilot not showing in PowerPoint?

The most common reasons are that no paid Copilot license is assigned to your account, that you are signed in with a personal account instead of your work account, or that your IT department has turned Copilot off or uses a slower update channel. Try PowerPoint on the web, check File and Account, and ask IT which license you have.

Video transcript

Read the transcript of the video (lightly edited)

How do you create a PowerPoint in Copilot? I think that is one of the most common questions I get whenever I’m out talking about how to use AI. So I’m going to show you.

If you’re new to this channel, I’m Johannes Sundlo. I help organizations figure out this whole AI thing, not so much from a technical perspective but from an organizational, leadership and HR perspective. But I’m also a bit technical, because I like technology and I like the AI tools.

There are two ways of creating PowerPoints in Copilot. There are probably more, but I will show you my preferred way. So let’s jump over to Copilot.

This is the business version of Copilot, and that’s what I’m going to show you, because I think it’s the easiest one. If your company is not paying for the business version and you do a lot of PowerPoints, it’s definitely worth the investment. It’s around 300 dollars a year, and you’ll save so much time if you do a lot of PowerPoints. I would go as far as saying that if you’re doing two PowerPoints a year, you could probably recoup the whole cost of the business license. It’s that easy and that fast, and you’ll see what I mean in a bit.

What I usually start with is to describe to Copilot what I want to do. But before we do that, as always with Copilot, be active in the model selection. You choose it up here on the left, and I’m going to choose the one I like. I’m going to dictate what we’re trying to do.

“I want to create a PowerPoint presentation that is an executive summary of our employee engagement data. I want to present it to our executive team. So I want a short summary, a nice overview. I want it to be visual, appealing and easy to understand, and I want a good analysis of the data and a good overview of the important parts for them. It’s really important that you avoid death by PowerPoint and that you make nice graphs that are easy to understand. And before you do anything, just give me the outline of the presentation. Don’t create the presentation, just create an outline. Give me the outline in text, not the actual slides. I’ll add the data that I have. So do the analysis, do the whole structuring of the PowerPoint, but don’t create the PowerPoint.”

While this is running, I’ll walk you through what I did. I like to start in Copilot by describing the task I have at hand. This is what I want to do, this is the target group. I don’t want slides at first. I want the outline, because I want to see the structure. We’ll use this format in PowerPoint later.

Now you can see it’s creating an outline. I was too vague on timing, so it chose 10 minutes. Let’s go with that for now. You can also see my custom instructions, which tell it to make a joke about Norway. What I want here is for it to analyze the data, so I’m going to be firmer about that.

“Great outline, thank you. Ten minutes is great, but I also want you to do the analysis so we know exactly what to put on each slide. I really like the structure and the flow, but please analyze all the data and go slide by slide, only in text for now, with what we put on each slide.”

This will probably take a while, so I’ll speed this part up.

And we are back. Here we have the six-slide executive summary, and it has analyzed the data. I won’t go through whether this is right or wrong, but we should obviously double-check it and use our own judgment. For the sake of the video, I will assume that Copilot has done a good overview.

You could get this instantly, but I really like the workflow of starting with: this is what I want to do, turn it into slides in text so I can see them and go through them. I can change them here. It’s fairly easy to go back and forth: slide one, do this instead, slide two, do this instead, and so on. It’s a good way of working.

What I can do now is copy the whole thing and put it into a Word document. Let’s save it. I’ll remove the parts we don’t need. I also have something here that I need to remove: the Norway joke, of course. I really need to change my settings in Copilot. Okay, that looks fairly good. Now I have the Word document.

Now we jump over to PowerPoint and click the Copilot logo in the lower right corner, and this menu pops out. We choose the right model, as high a model as you can choose. Then we find the file we worked with, the employee engagement summary outline. We say: create a PowerPoint based on the summary in the Word document, but follow the brand guidelines and the brand template that I’m about to add. You could write this, but I prefer speaking.

Then we either search for our brand template or drag it in, and say this is the template we’re going to use. Then we click Send, and hopefully PowerPoint will work its magic and we’ll have a presentation based on the colors and the template we use, and on the information we provided.

This is usually how I work when creating PowerPoint presentations. And while PowerPoint is working in the background, this is a good time to tell you that if you haven’t subscribed to this channel yet, make sure you hit the subscribe button.

Let’s go back to PowerPoint and see how things are going. This is what it created. It took the employee engagement executive summary outline and paired it with the template. The template looks right. We can argue about whether it’s a good template, but it follows the template. This one is a bit wonky, but overall it does a fairly good job of showing the data.

So that’s how you create a PowerPoint in Copilot today. I hope you got value out of this and that you now see how easy it is to create a PowerPoint if you have the business license. I’ll catch you in the next one.

The price mentioned in the video is a round figure. Current prices are in the table above.

Sources

• Microsoft Support: Create a new presentation with Copilot in PowerPoint
• Microsoft Support: Frequently asked questions about Copilot in PowerPoint
• Microsoft Support: Keep your presentation on-brand with Copilot
• Microsoft Support: Copilot tutorial, create a branded presentation from a file
• Microsoft: Copilot Business pricing
• Microsoft: Microsoft Copilot pricing and Copilot Chat
• Microsoft Learn: Copilot Business FAQ