I’ve been testing Copilot presentation prompts a lot this month, and this time I wanted to answer a simple question: does putting more thought into your prompt actually make a difference, or is it all a bit of a lottery?
Starting simple
I opened Copilot in PowerPoint desktop and hovered over the Copilot icon, which gave me the start of a prompt to type into: ‘Create a presentation.’
I typed “Microsoft Teams” as my topic. Copilot then asked me three quick questions: who it’s for, how long it should be, and what to focus on. I answered on the fly — new business owners, five slides, core features plus security and compliance.
It also asked how I wanted it to look. I went with warm sand and teal, since not everyone leaving corporate life wants a corporate-looking deck.
The result wasn’t bad, just a bit thin
The five slides came out reasonably well structured: an intro, why Teams matters, core features, security, and getting started. Nothing embarrassing, and definitely usable as a starting point.
But here’s the thing. I hadn’t given it much detail to work with, so it filled in the gaps itself. If you need a presentation for something specific, generic filler isn’t quite good enough, and that’s exactly where a proper prompt earns its keep.
A framework, not just a better prompt
Rather than just handing you a “better” prompt, I want to give you something you can reuse for any topic. So here’s the framework I use:
- Audience — who’s it for, and what do they already know?
- Structure — how many slides, and what goes on each one?
- Content — what specific facts or points actually need to be included?
- Tone — plain English? formal? anything you want it to avoid?
Answer those four questions, and you’ve basically written yourself a strong prompt without even trying.
Fill-in-the-blank template:
“Create a [X]-slide presentation about [topic] for [audience]. Slide 1: [title/purpose], Slide 2: [content], Slide 3: [content], Slide 4: [content]. Keep the tone [plain English / formal / friendly] and avoid [jargon / technical terms / anything specific to skip].”
Of course this example is with 4 slides, expand to match the number of slides mentioned.
Don’t forget your brand
When Copilot asks how you want your presentation to look, it’s easy to answer with a general style word and move on. But if you’ve got a brand template or specific colours you use, that question is actually your best opportunity to say so.
Give it the details there and then — your template name, your brand colours, your fonts, whatever you’d normally use. Doing it at this stage means Copilot builds the whole deck with your branding already accounted for, rather than fitting it in afterwards.
It’s tempting to think you can just apply your template once the deck is finished. Technically, yes, you can. But in practice, this usually means extra manual work: fonts and sizes that need resizing, text boxes that don’t quite fit, and images Copilot has generated that don’t match your colours at all. All fixable, but all avoidable too, just by mentioning your branding a little earlier in the process.
More ways to use the framework
A client pitch:
“Create a 6-slide presentation pitching my bookkeeping services to a prospective client who runs a small retail business. Slide 1: title only. Slide 2: the problem — time lost on manual admin. Slide 3: how I can help, three services. Slide 4: pricing overview. Slide 5: a simple case study or example result. Slide 6: next steps to get started. Keep the tone warm and confident, avoid heavy financial jargon.”
A team update:
“Create a 4-slide presentation for a monthly team update at a small business. Slide 1: title only. Slide 2: three wins from this month. Slide 3: one challenge and how it’s being handled. Slide 4: priorities for next month. Keep it brief and conversational, this is for an internal team, not clients.”
Notice the shape stays the same each time — audience, slide count and structure, the actual content points, and tone — only the details change. Once you’ve used the framework a couple of times, filling it in for a new topic takes barely a minute.
Putting the framework to the test
Using the framework, my new prompt was a lot more specific: five slides, small business audience, a title slide, what Teams actually is, three practical benefits, a common misconception, and simple, jargon-free language throughout. This time, I chose a bold design style.
The result stuck far more closely to what I’d actually asked for. The content matched my brief slide by slide, rather than Copilot guessing what I probably meant. That alone makes editing afterwards a much faster job.
Try it yourself
Next time you ask Copilot for a presentation, don’t just type a one-line topic and hope. Run through Audience, Structure, Content, and Tone first, and build your prompt from there. It takes an extra minute, and it saves you a lot more than that in editing time.
Created with the help of Claude AI from an original transcript.
YouTube Videos
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