Presenter Coach: AI presentation assistance

For many people, presenting is difficult. Although they try their hardest to be prepared, they ultimately may do so without proper assistance. What exactly is the goal when practicing for a presentation? Is it memorization? Is it sounding good? Is it sounding like you know what you're talking about? In the pursuit of practice, we may focus on one or none of those things. Microsoft saw this issue and, alongside their PowerPoint and with the explosion of AI, developed Presenter Coach. Which is quite literally a presentation coach. Released in 2022, Microsoft's presenter coach is "an artificial intelligence-powered technology assistant that can help teachers and students prepare for presentations," and it works by "listening to your voice as you present, scanning the slide for content, and determining what you may need to work on"(Sail the 7 Cs with Microsoft Education, communicators chapter). This tool enables the PowerPoint itself to grade how well you are presenting. Instead of consulting a multitude of websites, people, or anything else, Microsoft's AI can run and aid you from the comfort of your desk, couch, chair, or really anywhere you can set up and work. As AI continues to become refined, this tool will surely be improved to understand more within whatever context is presented to it. Now, safety and privacy could be a concern with voice recording. However, Microsoft does not store information or voice logs, instead, Presenter Coach simply gives feedback and deletes voice logs afterwards(Sail the 7 Cs with Microsoft Education, communicators chapter). This is important because it reinforces Microsoft's stance on privacy and really shows that they care for the protection of students or youth who use their tool.

In the classroom, both students and teachers can utilize this tool. Teachers, to prepare for a lesson that involves lecturing off slides; Students, to prepare for a project that has them reading off slides. Of course, eventually, maybe with the aid of Presenter Coach, both students and teachers should become capable of presenting and not reading off slides. With the ability to publically speak so important, Presenter Coach proves to be a valuable tool to aid those who struggle in that sector and to help those who are skilled refine said skills. Tools like this, built in for free, are reasons why PowerPoint is the number 1 presentation software worldwide. As long as Microsoft continues to produce new tools and refine preexisting tools that aid students and teachers alike, it will continue to be on top of the presentation software industry. PowerPoint Presenter Coach is a perfect example of Microsoft adapting to the rise of AI and harnesing it to create opportunities for their users.