Microsoft added the Live Caption and Subtitles feature to Office Insider Build 1920 (build 11231.20066) of PowerPoint late last week.
The Live Captions and Subtitles feature transcribes the presenter’s speech to subtitles real-time using AI, translate them to other languages, and adapt to recognize technical terms and names according to the slideshow’s content.
The new feature is available within the latest Insider build of PowerPoint for Mac, Windows PCs, and PowerPoint Online. It can be enabled for all presentations through the Slide Show tab, or during the presentation in Presenter View. At launch, Live captions and subtitles will support 12 spoken languages and display them in more than 60 languages.
“Live captions & subtitles in PowerPoint supports the deaf and hard of hearing community by giving them the ability to read what is being spoken in real-time,” Said Microsoft in its blog post.
Since it the AI function is likely uses cloud computing for translation and speech recognition, it’s unclear if it would need a constant internet connection in order to work. And because the presenter’s voice is recorded and uploaded to the cloud, Microsoft says that the feature is compliant with industry privacy standards and certifications in a December blog post.