Microsoft PowerPoint can now help you practice presentations almost anywhere – no human needed

Microsoft’s Presenter Coach, which helps you practice presentations, has been available on the web version of PowerPoint for some time, but is finally reaching the desktop and mobile versions of the application. According to Microsoft, the feature will now be available on Mac, Windows, iOS, Android and, of course, on the web.

The PowerPoint Presenter Coach listens to you as you practice a presentation out loud – it analyzes what you are saying and can warn you if you are speaking too fast or too slowly, using completion words like “one” or “ahh” or just reading the words on the slide (a personal implication of mine). Testing on PowerPoint for Windows and iOS, it worked surprisingly well, doing pretty much everything Microsoft says it should. At the end, it provides a short report, stating what you need to practice.

Along with expanded availability, there are also some new ways for the feature to try to make your presentation better: it can look at body language (how close you are to the camera, whether you’re making eye contact or putting things in front of your face) and warn you if you are repeating words or saying them incorrectly. And yes, it still tells you not to swear on your presentation.

When I tried it, the feature didn’t appear in the Mac version of the app, but I managed to use it on iOS. Microsoft was not immediately available to comment on when the feature would appear on the Mac, or whether voice and video analysis was done on the device or in the cloud for the desktop and mobile versions.

However, for those concerned with privacy, it is important to note that when I tried it in airplane mode, he told me that I needed to connect to the Internet to use the coaching feature.