PowerPoint’s new brand templates: a genuinely well-governed feature with one loose thread
PowerPoint is bringing brand templates directly into Backstage, so approved templates show up exactly where users already look for them, rather than living in a shared drive nobody quite remembers the path to. It’s a sensible fix for a genuinely common problem: presentations built from whatever template someone happened to have open last.
What’s changing
General availability begins worldwide in late August 2026 and is expected to complete by mid-September, both dates pushed back slightly from Microsoft’s original early and late August estimates.
It applies to users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot Premium licence using PowerPoint for Windows, a narrower audience than standard Copilot licensing, worth checking before assuming this reaches everyone with Copilot access.
Eligible users will see brand templates directly in PowerPoint’s Backstage Home and New tabs, drawn from whichever Brand kits are available to them, both official and personal. Existing Organizational Asset Library templates aren’t going anywhere, they continue to live in the Organization tab exactly as before, and nothing gets removed as part of this change.
To make official templates available, organisations need to review their Brand kit configuration, publish official kits containing PowerPoint templates, and configure the Enterprise Brand Manager policy to designate approved brand managers through a mail-enabled security group.
Quick summary
PowerPoint is adding organisational brand templates to Backstage, rolling out from late August 2026, covering:
This is a genuinely well-governed update, official branding has a real admin control and a real approval chain. The detail worth planning for isn’t the official side at all, it’s that personal Brand kits exist as an entirely separate, self-service track alongside it, and organisations now have two template systems running in parallel rather than one.
Why this matters more than it first appears
The official side of this is about as well governed as a Microsoft 365 feature gets:
- There’s a genuine admin control, not a nominal one. The Enterprise Brand Manager policy determines who can publish official Brand kits, enforced through Entra ID group membership, which is a real, auditable access boundary.
- Nothing existing gets displaced. Organizational Asset Library templates stay in place untouched, so this is additive rather than a migration you’re forced into.
The loose thread is the other half of the feature: personal Brand kits, which any user can create and manage on their own by default, without going through the official approval chain. Microsoft’s own compliance answers confirm this directly, users can enable and manage personal Brand kits themselves, while official kit management stays restricted to designated brand managers. Worth knowing, and not stated in the update itself: a separate Restrict Brand Kit Creation Policy exists independently of the Enterprise Brand Manager policy, letting admins limit who can create personal kits at all, so this isn’t actually a completely open door if you’d rather close it. That’s a genuinely useful lever most organisations reading only the roadmap message won’t know exists.
- Your organisation now has two live template systems, Organizational Asset Library and Brand kits, running side by side rather than one replacing the other. Left unaddressed, that’s two places for “which template is actually current” confusion to grow.
- Nothing stops a personal Brand kit from looking close enough to official branding that a viewer wouldn’t necessarily know the difference. Not a security issue, but a brand consistency one, which is precisely the problem this feature exists to solve on the official side.
Who’s affected
- Users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot Premium licence using PowerPoint for Windows
- Organisations that have configured Brand kits, or are considering doing so to take advantage of this
- Organisations currently relying on Organizational Asset Libraries, who should decide deliberately whether to consolidate into Brand kits or maintain both
What we’d recommend doing now
No action is required to receive this feature, but getting the official side configured properly is where the actual value sits:
- Review your Brand kit configuration now, ahead of the August rollout, so approved templates are ready to appear the moment eligible users start looking for them.
- Configure the Enterprise Brand Manager policy deliberately, choosing who sits in the mail-enabled security group with the same care you’d apply to any other content-approval permission.
- Decide whether to consolidate your Organizational Asset Library into Brand kits, or run both, rather than letting two parallel systems grow without a plan.
- Set light expectations around personal Brand kits, users are free to create their own by default, and that’s fine for most organisations, but if you’d rather restrict who can create them at all, the Restrict Brand Kit Creation Policy handles that independently of the Enterprise Brand Manager policy.
Where this fits with your wider Microsoft 365 Copilot rollout
Because this specifically requires Copilot Premium rather than standard Copilot licensing, it’s worth checking as part of any wider Copilot licensing review, this is exactly the kind of Premium-only capability that’s easy to miss when planning what your organisation actually gets access to.
If you’d like support getting this set up properly, we can help:
- Talk to a consultant about configuring Brand kits and the Enterprise Brand Manager policy, or about your broader Copilot licensing strategy.
- Get in touch with our support team if you’d like help setting up the technical configuration ahead of the August rollout.
- Explore our Microsoft 365 Copilot training if your brand managers or wider teams need a refresher once this lands.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are PowerPoint’s new brand templates?
Approved organisational templates that appear directly in PowerPoint’s Backstage Home and New tabs on Windows, for users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot Premium licence, drawn from an organisation’s configured Brand kits.
Do you need Copilot Premium to use PowerPoint brand templates?
Yes. This feature is available specifically to users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot Premium licence using PowerPoint for Windows, not standard Copilot licensing.
Will this remove or replace our existing Organizational Asset Library templates?
No. Existing Organizational Asset Library templates remain fully available through the Organization tab, and nothing is removed as part of this change.
Who can publish official Brand kit templates?
Only designated brand managers, controlled through a mail-enabled security group configured via the Enterprise Brand Manager policy. Any user, however, can create and manage a personal Brand kit for their own use, separate from official branding.
When is this rolling out?
General availability begins worldwide in late August 2026 and is expected to complete by mid-September 2026, both dates revised from Microsoft’s original estimates on 31 July 2026.