This blog was originally written for Team Copilot and is republished here on my personal website.
Earlier, I wrote about custom skills in Copilot in PowerPoint. A skill is a saved set of instructions that Copilot can follow whenever you ask for it. Until now, you created one by writing the instructions yourself in a SKILL.md file and uploading it to OneDrive. That works well if you enjoy writing instructions. Many people prefer to show what they want.
With Record a skill, you can. You do the task once while Copilot watches, and Copilot drafts the skill for you. In this blog, I walk through how it works, what I tested on desktop, and which tasks are worth recording.
What Record a skill does
You open a presentation and the Copilot pane. Under Custom skills, you select Add skill and then Record Skill. From that moment, everything you do is recorded. You can give Copilot instructions, edit slides directly or use the ribbon. When you stop, Copilot drafts the instructions and saves the skill to your personal Skills folder in OneDrive.
To use it later, you select the plus icon in the prompt box and choose Choose skills, or you type the name of the skill as an @mention. You manage your skills under Manage plugins & skills. According to the Message Center, the feature rolls out automatically in October and requires no admin action.
Microsoft gives one tip that I found useful: record one clear, repeatable outcome at a time.
What I tested
I tried two examples on PowerPoint desktop.
Example 1: consistent formatting. In a deck, I gave all slide titles the same color and size. I also gave all body text the same size and made the subtitles bold and italic with the same font. Then I stopped the recording.
The processing took about ten to fifteen seconds. The instructions Copilot generated looked good. There were a few details I would clarify or double check next time, but they gave me a solid starting point. When I ran the skill on a different presentation, it took longer, roughly one and a half to two minutes. The result was exactly what I expected.
Example 2: an agenda slide. For the second test, I recorded how I turn all section titles into agenda items. I used separate numbered blocks with a light green fill and a green outline instead of a bullet list. Copilot captured this formatting in the skill.
The first time I ran the skill, Copilot told me it was done, but the agenda slide was empty. I replied that I could not see anything on the slide, and Copilot corrected it. After that, the agenda appeared as expected.
What I noticed
- Copilot wrote the instructions in English, even though my Office language is set to Dutch. The instructions themselves were accurate, but it is something to keep in mind when you read through them.
- Processing a recording takes seconds. Running the skill on a full presentation takes a few minutes.
- A skill can capture formatting details, such as a custom block layout, and not only simple changes like font size.
- The first result can be incomplete. In my case, saying what was missing was enough to get it fixed.
That last point is a good reminder for adoption. A recorded skill is a starting point that you check, like any other Copilot output.
What is worth recording?
This was the hardest part for me. Many presentation tasks are specific to one deck, and those are not worth a skill. A few questions help me decide:
- Do I do this more than a few times a month?
- Are the steps the same every time?
- Do I know what the result should look like?
If the answer to all three is yes, it is a good candidate.
Ideas to try yourself
- Add a closing slide with next steps and contact details in a fixed layout.
- Turn long text slides into a maximum of five bullets.
- Insert section divider slides with a consistent look.
- Format every table the same way, with a styled header row and aligned numbers.
- Add a source line in a small font at the bottom of each slide.
Try one of these yourself and let me know how it went. I am curious which tasks turn out to be worth recording.
Closing thoughts
What I like about Record a skill is how low the barrier is. You do not have to know how skills are structured. You do the task once, check the result and improve it where needed. Small, repeatable tasks are where Copilot becomes part of your routine.
As with most Copilot features, the value shows when you use it in your own work. Pick one task you repeat every week, record it and see what happens.
