In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, crafting an engaging and accessible presentation is more critical than ever.
Whether you’re presenting to an audience across Northeastern’s global university system or within a small team, Microsoft Copilot and PowerPoint Live provide powerful tools to streamline your workflow while ensuring accessibility for all attendees.
Save time and effort with AI
Microsoft Copilot, an AI-powered assistant included in Northeastern’s M365 licenses, helps you generate compelling presentations with ease and can elevate your workflow with automated content generation and an enhanced design. Other generative AI tools, such as Claude and ChatGPT, work similar to Copilot for creating content.
Generative AI tools simplify slide creation by generating full presentations from a simple prompt. When drafting a prompt to AI, be sure to provide context by using precise language, avoiding vague terms, and including relevant details to narrow down the answer you’re looking for.
For example, instead of asking, “Write a haiku about a husky,” say, “Write a haiku about a husky dog, highlighting its playful nature and loyalty, using a 5-7-5 syllable structure.”
With this information, Microsoft Copilot can assist with summarizing reports, drafting talking points, curating engaging content that resonates with your target audience, and suggesting visual elements based on the text.
Microsoft Copilot can also assist with suggesting professional layouts for your presentation, ensuring visually appealing and well-structured slides. Use prompts such as, “What are optimal font sizes for accessibility” or “what is the best color contrast for accessibility?” for better readability and accessibility. To ensure your presentation is free from accessibility issues, review the best practices for creating accessible Microsoft PowerPoint documents.
Boosting Accessibility and Engagement with PowerPoint Live
PowerPoint Live has features that enhance accessibility and audience engagement to ensure everyone can follow and enjoy your presentation, such as live captioning and subtitles. Real-time captions can support those who are deaf or hard of hearing, so you can make your presentation more accessible and reach a greater audience. PowerPoint Live also has audience interaction features, like allowing viewers to navigate slides at their own pace or adjusting text sizes to improve visual accessibility. You can change the slides to grayscale for people with low vision or color blindness or enable “dark mode” to enhance readability. Each of these features allows for a more flexible and personalized audience experience.
Lastly, presenters can have more control by monitoring audience engagement while managing notes and upcoming slides in a single view, making it easier to stay organized and adapt their delivery in real time. The presenter view allows them to see who is following along, identify when engagement drops, and adjust accordingly. The built-in chat and Q&A features encourage real-time interaction without disrupting the presentation, enabling attendees to ask questions or provide input without needing to unmute or interrupt the flow.
Learn more about using PowerPoint Live to present with ease.
Putting these skills to work
Leveraging Copilot and PowerPoint Live can significantly enhance the quality, accessibility, and engagement of your presentations. By harnessing AI-driven tools and inclusive design practices, you can deliver impactful messages that resonate with every audience member.
Review these additional resources to maximize the quality of your presentations:
- Complete the PowerPoint LinkedIn Learning journey.
- Schedule a quick question consultation with a Digital Instructional Technologist to discuss specific questions or challenges you may be experiencing
Boost your tech skills with workshops
In-person training is also available to help you build your tech confidence. The Digital Solutions team recently hosted this topic as an in-person session on the Boston and Oakland campuses, focusing on how to create powerful, accessible presentations using Microsoft Copilot and PowerPoint Live. If you’re local to the Boston or Oakland campuses, Skill Up workshops are held in the Tech Bar on Wednesdays to help you master essential tools like Excel, Outlook, Teams, and more. Don’t miss the chance to level up—check out the full schedule and resources today!