In December last year, Microsoft had announced that it will bring AI-powered live captions and subtitles feature to PowerPoint. The tech giant has now started to roll the feature out.
On the occasion of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, the company said it aims to create an accessible and inclusive workplace for everyone. These new features in Microsoft PowerPoint are specially meant for people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
The Live Captions feature will provide real-time transcriptions of the spoken words of a presenter on a screen either in the same language or in a translated language.
“We know how powerful a great presentation can be—whether it inspires us or aligns us to a common goal,” wrote Clare Barclay, Chief Operating Officer, Microsoft U.K., in a blog post.
PowerPoint will support 12 spoken languages and more than 60 languages for on-screen captions and subtitles. It will be very helpful for global and remote employees who speak different languages from the person who is presenting.
Further, the live captions will enable the listener to learn the things of presentation even if he is attending it from a loud environment.
Additionally, Microsoft is bringing the live captions and subtitles feature to Teams Meetings as well. It will be soon available in Microsoft Teams as a preview in English. The new feature will work along with the captioning and transcription features which are already available for recorded Teams meetings and live events in Stream, Teams, and Yammer.
“Whether in a 1-1 with your manager, or a company-wide all hands, everyone should feel included when the team gets together to meet, including people who are deaf or hard of hearing,” added Clare Barclay.
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The new feature has started rolling out and will soon be generally available for subscribers of Microsoft 365 and Office 365 for Windows, Mac, and the web.
