PowerPoint Presenter Coach: How to improve your presentation skills

Posted on Wednesday December 07, 2022

If you have a presentation coming up, it's a good idea to practice ahead of time. Microsoft PowerPoint Presenter Coach can help you get ready.

What is PowerPoint Presenter Coach?

PowerPoint Presenter Coach is a tool that uses artificial intelligence to evaluate your presentation skills in real time. It will tell you how well you are doing with regard to pace, pronunciation, repetitive language, and eye contact with the audience.

At the end of each rehearsal, you will receive a feedback report highlighting key areas for improvement, which can help you become a better and more confident presenter. PowerPoint Presenter Coach is currently available on Windows, iOS, and Android devices.

How does PowerPoint Presenter Coach help improve presentations?

PowerPoint Presenter Coach can improve your presentation skills by providing feedback on the following:

1. Body language Did you know that great presenters don't just rehearse their dialogue, but also their posture, gestures, and facial expressions? For example, they might use hand gestures to accentuate a point. PowerPoint Presenter Coach provides feedback about:

• Your visibility to the audience
• Your distance from the camera
• Maintaining constant eye contact with the audience

By conveying the right body language, you will come across as more trustworthy and relatable to the audience.

2. Repeated words and phrases Emphasizing certain words and phrases during a presentation can help you ensure that your audience recalls the points you want to make. However, if this technique is done incorrectly, it may become distracting to listeners. You may not even realize that you are repeating words and phrases yourself, but chances are your audience will catch on.

PowerPoint Presenter Coach will help you avoid repeating the same words and phrases by identifying them after listening to your rehearsal. It will then provide you with a list of synonyms so you can mix up your choice of words and keep your audience more engaged during your presentation.

3. Pitch When you speak with little enthusiasm, chances are your audience won't be eager to listen to you. Presenter Coach will help liven up your pitch and ensure you're emphasizing the important points and keywords to make your presentation more engaging and meaningful.

4. Pronunciation Differentiating the pronunciation of words that sound alike but have different meanings can be challenging. Presenter Coach provides guidance on how to correctly say these words during rehearsal.

It will identify and display a potentially mispronounced word and give you an opportunity to practice pronouncing the word correctly. You can listen to a recording of the word's pronunciation as many times as you want. Note that Microsoft designed this feature for "General American English." If you don't need this type of feedback, there's an option to disable it.

5. Pace PowerPoint Presenter Coach not only allows the presenter to see if they are going too fast or too slow but also gives an estimate of the speed at with the presenter should speak (in words per minute) to maintain optimal audience engagement. Too few or too many words spoken per minute have been proven to reduce recall rates and compromise clarity.

If you want to learn more about other Microsoft 365 features, call our specialists today.