PowerPoint becomes a skill machine

“Copilot makes nice slides, just not ours.” You hear this sentence a lot when it comes to Copilot in PowerPoint. The Message Center posts from September and October aim right at it: brand skills, organization skills, Record a Skill and strict mode. Copilot in PowerPoint finally learns corporate design.

Skills on three levels

Level	Who?	How?
Brand skills	Brand managers	Upload presentation skills as .md or .zip to the brand kit and publish them (MC1473163, MC1473165, MC1473166). Desktop, web and Mac.
Organization skills	Admins	Upload skills as a .zip package with manifest centrally in the admin center and distribute them to everyone (MC1478960, MC1478961). They then appear under Agents > Tools.
Record a Skill	Users	Record work steps in PowerPoint and save them as a reusable skill (MC1490903).

Create a skill in the brand kit or import it as a file. Screenshot: Microsoft, MC1473166

Strict mode and notes steering

Two new settings in the brand kit (MC1470415):

• Strict mode: Copilot only uses approved layouts and slide masters. No more self-invented layouts.
• Notes steering: instructions in the speaker notes of the template steer the generation, for example mandatory slides, order or text density.

A small side note: when creating new brand kits, the fields “Brand guidelines” and “Style” are dropped (MC1483859). Copilot did not use them anyway. Existing kits keep their content.

What admins need to clarify

⚠️ Who is the brand manager?
You assign the role through the enterprise brand manager policy and a mail-enabled security group. Without a brand manager, brand skills stay unused, because they do not activate themselves.

On top, you need a process: who writes skills, who reviews them for data protection, accessibility and brand, who maintains them?

What stays

This is one of the most practical updates of the month. Skills turn “Copilot, make me some slides” into a repeatable, on-brand process. In return, the work moves to the front: good skills do not write themselves.

☕ Espresso Moment: A good recipe tastes the same with every barista. Skills are the recipe for your slides.

Your takeaways

• Name a brand manager
• Write and test a first skill for a standard presentation
• Activate strict mode for customer and board templates
• Try notes steering in your main template
• Define an approval process for skills

Message Center posts: MC1473163, MC1473165, MC1473166, MC1478960, MC1478961, MC1490903, MC1470415, MC1483859

How are you tackling this in your tenant? Tell me on LinkedIn, I am curious about your experiences.