PowerPoint gets exciting new feature that makes complex presentations a breeze

Microsoft has released a new tool in PowerPoint that may make the lives of some customers significantly easier.

A PowerPoint slide that says Understanding PowerPoint presentations is now a piece of cake!

PowerPoint has always been a core component of Microsoft's Office suite of applications, and this remains the case today with Microsoft 365. The software recently netted AI agents, accessibility enhancements, and new pens in the Draw tab. Now, Microsoft has begun rolling out yet another capability that may make some customers very happy.

The new feature in question is Explainer, a tool that is powered by Copilot. As the name implies, this utility makes it easier to understand presentations, which is important when slide decks use very complex jargon and acronyms.

Customers can basically right-click on any PowerPoint object like a textbox that contains a lot of complicated text, and simply press on Explain this, which will appear as the first option in the context menu. The same option will also appear if you highlight a portion of the text. Copilot will then generate a summary in the side pane of PowerPoint, that is hopefully easier to understand.

The purpose of Explainer is pretty clear. It is designed to provide a concise summary of text that may be too difficult for you to understand without multiple reads and web searches. Copilot hides all that complexity, which is very useful as it does not break the flow of your comprehension.

Microsoft has emphasized that the summaries generated by Copilot are contextual rather than generic, as they are grounded in your slide's content. Additionally, Explainer is very easy to access and it keeps your main PowerPoint canvas clean as all explanations are generated in the side pane.

Explainer is now available for all PowerPoint customers running Version 2510 (Build 19328.20072) or later on Windows or Version 16.103 (Build 25110343) or later on Mac. That said, you do need a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

As always, the Redmond tech giant has requested customers to send any feedback directly through the built-in mechanism that can be accessed through Help > Feedback. It has also asked users to thumbs-up or thumbs-down summaries generated by Explainer in the side pane too.