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You finish a meeting, your boss asks for a quick recap deck by lunchtime, and you've got a stack of notes plus an empty afternoon. That's the kind of moment Microsoft is betting you'll reach for Copilot — its AI helper built into the paid Microsoft 365 productivity suite (the subscription that includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook). Here's what Copilot in PowerPoint actually does today, who can use it, and how to check whether it's on the device in front of you.
What Copilot in PowerPoint does (confirmed)
Across the desktop and web versions of PowerPoint — where Microsoft has officially documented Copilot — the assistant handles a few repeatable jobs:
- Drafts a deck from a prompt. You describe the topic, audience, and tone, and Copilot produces a starting presentation with title slides, section dividers, and placeholder content you can edit.
- Rewrites or expands slide text. You can ask it to shorten a bullet, expand a point, or change the tone of an existing slide.
- Summarizes a long deck. If you open an existing presentation, Copilot can produce a quick summary or a speaker-notes draft.
- Answers questions about the deck. You can ask things like "what does slide 7 say?" in plain language.
These features are described in Microsoft's own Copilot documentation for PowerPoint, and they're what most users actually see on Windows, Mac, and the web version of PowerPoint.
The licensing reality — read this before you start
Copilot is not included in standard Microsoft 365 Personal or Family plans. It's sold as a separate add-on, usually through business or enterprise plans that bundle it in. Some larger organizations also offer it as a per-seat license.
If you don't see a Copilot button in your PowerPoint, the first thing to check is whether your Microsoft account has a Copilot license attached, not whether your app is up to date. Microsoft has a support page that walks through confirming this; the short version is: go to your Microsoft account, look at your subscription details, and confirm "Copilot" appears.
The iPad question, honestly
This is where things get a little less certain. PowerPoint for iPad exists, and Microsoft has been gradually bringing some Copilot features to its mobile apps over time. Whether the full set of desktop Copilot features — the sparkly ribbon icon, the side chat panel, draft-from-scratch — works exactly the same way on iPad today is something I can't confirm without risking making up details that may not be true.
If you want to check on your iPad right now: open the PowerPoint app, sign in with your Microsoft account, and look around the ribbon or home tab for a Copilot button. If you don't see one, that's the answer — either your plan doesn't include Copilot, or that feature isn't turned on for your account on iPad yet. Either way, the desktop or web version of PowerPoint (open it in a browser at office.com) is usually where Copilot appears most reliably.
Wrap-up
Copilot in PowerPoint is a real, working assistant for people whose Microsoft plan includes it — especially on desktop and web. On iPad and other mobile apps, features are still rolling out and aren't always identical, so check on your specific device before you plan around it. The honest first step: open PowerPoint on your computer or at office.com, look for the Copilot button, and confirm your license. If it's there, try drafting a small 3-slide deck from a short prompt — that's a five-minute test, and it'll show you what it can do in your own hands.