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Guide

How to do a voice-over on PowerPoint: record it yourself or use an AI voice

Record narration for one slide or the whole deck, make it play automatically, export it as a video, or let an AI voice read your speaker notes. Steps for Windows, Mac and Google Slides, with costs.

Updated 2 Nov 2026

A narrated deck works without you in the room: for onboarding, a training module, a product demo or a pitch that people watch in their own time. If you have the PowerPoint desktop app, you can record your own voice at no extra cost. An AI voice is the other route: it reads your speaker notes, sounds the same every time, and can be regenerated when a slide changes. This guide covers both, step by step, and what each one costs. Steps and prices come from Microsoft’s and Murf’s own documentation as of 2 November 2026.

What is the quickest way to add a voice-over to PowerPoint?

  • The whole deck in your own voice: open the Record tab and choose From Beginning. PowerPoint saves the audio and the timing on every slide. No extra cost in the PowerPoint desktop app for Windows and Mac.
  • One short clip on one slide: Insert, then Audio, then Record Audio.
  • An AI voice that reads your speaker notes: a paid tool turns your notes into audio, and you regenerate it when the text changes. Murf’s add-in, the example in this guide, runs in PowerPoint for Windows and needs its Business plan.
  • Google Slides: Slides cannot record. Record or generate the audio elsewhere and insert it from Google Drive, or use an add-on.
Illustration with an example deck. The narrator is an ElevenLabs voice, not a Murf voice. The steps follow Microsoft's and Murf's documentation as of 2 November 2026.
Transcript of the video (85 seconds)

Your slides are ready. Now they need a voice, for everyone who watches them without you.

Here's how to add a voice-over in PowerPoint: with your own voice, or with an AI voice that reads your speaker notes.

Option one costs nothing extra. Put your script in the speaker notes, open the Record tab, and choose From Beginning. The teleprompter shows your notes while you speak, and PowerPoint saves the audio on every slide.

Option two is an AI voice. Murf's add-in for PowerPoint on Windows imports your speaker notes. Pick a voice, listen, and add the narration to each slide. Adding it to slides needs Murf's Business plan.

For audio clips you insert yourself, open Playback and set Start to Automatically. Tick Hide During Show, so the speaker icon stays out of the presentation.

To share it as a video, choose File, Export, Create a Video. With your own recording, keep Use Recorded Timings and Narrations.

Before you send it, watch it once from start to finish. AI voices misread numbers and names, so write them in the notes the way they should be spoken.

Mac, Google Slides and the costs are in the full guide on bto.ai

How do you record a voice-over for the whole presentation?

This works in PowerPoint for Microsoft 365 on Windows and in PowerPoint for Mac. PowerPoint for the web cannot record a slide show.

  1. Write what you want to say into the speaker notes. In the recording view, choose the Teleprompter view to see your notes while you speak.
  2. Open the Record tab and choose From Beginning to narrate the whole deck, or From Current Slide to start at the selected slide.
  3. Turn the camera off if you only want audio, and check that the right microphone is selected.
  4. Start the recording, wait for the countdown, and speak. Move to the next slide with the arrow keys or the on-screen arrows.
  5. Let transitions finish before you speak. PowerPoint does not record narration while a transition is playing.
  6. Stop, then play it back. A mistake on one slide? On the Record tab, choose Clear, then the option for the current slide, not all slides. Then record that slide again with From Current Slide.

PowerPoint saves the narration and the time you spent on each slide in the file itself. In slide-show mode the deck then plays by itself, as long as Play Narrations and Use Timings are ticked on the Slide Show tab.

How do you add a voice-over to a single slide?

  1. Go to the slide and choose Insert, then Audio, then Record Audio.
  2. Name the clip, choose Record and speak. Choose Stop, then Play to check it.
  3. Choose OK. A speaker icon appears on the slide; drag it to a corner.

The same menu inserts a file you recorded or generated somewhere else, such as an MP3 or WAV: Audio on My PC on Windows, Audio from File on a Mac. That is also how an AI voice from a separate tool gets into a slide.

How do you make the voice-over play automatically?

Narration recorded with Record plays by itself in slide-show mode. For clips you inserted yourself:

  1. Select the speaker icon and open the Playback tab.
  2. Set Start to Automatically, so the clip plays as soon as the slide appears.
  3. Tick Hide During Show, so the icon does not show in the presentation.
  4. Move on to the next slide automatically: on the Transitions tab, under Advance Slide, tick After and enter a time one or two seconds longer than the clip. Repeat this for each slide.

If recorded narration stays silent, check Play Narrations on the Slide Show tab. If slides do not advance, check Use Timings. If an inserted clip does not play, select its icon again and check that Start is set to Automatically.

PowerPoint’s Read Aloud on the Review tab only reads text out loud while you listen; it saves no audio in the slides. It helps with proofreading, but it is not a voice-over.

How do you add an AI voice-over to PowerPoint?

An AI voice makes sense when you update decks often, need several languages, or do not want to record yourself. Here is how it works with the PowerPoint add-in from Murf AI, which turns speaker notes into a voice-over on each slide.

  1. Create a Murf account and install the add-in. Sign up at Murf AI (affiliate link) and download the add-in from Murf’s PowerPoint page. It is a Windows installer (.msi); there is no Mac version of this add-in. Close PowerPoint while you install it.
  2. Open PowerPoint, select the Murf tab and choose Launch Murf. Log in; a sidebar opens.
  3. Import the script from your speaker notes, or type it for each slide. A line break in the notes starts a new audio block, and each block holds up to 1,000 characters.
  4. Pick a voice and listen. Adjust speed, pitch, pauses and the pronunciation of product names before you generate every slide.
  5. Choose Add to slide, for one slide or all slides at once. The audio does not follow later edits to your notes by itself: change the text, generate again and choose Update in slide.

As of 2 November 2026, adding audio through the add-in requires Murf’s Business plan ($66 a month billed yearly, $99 monthly) or Enterprise. On the cheaper Creator plan ($19 a month billed yearly, $29 monthly), you can generate the narration in Murf Studio, download one audio file per slide and insert it with Insert, then Audio on My PC. That is more clicks, but the same voices. The free plan lets you listen to voices, not download them. Prices are before tax. Plans, refunds and data protection are in our Murf AI review.

Before an AI voice goes into a customer-facing deck, listen to every slide once. AI voices misread abbreviations, prices and names more often than whole sentences.

How do you turn a narrated PowerPoint into a video?

  1. Choose File, then Export, then Create a Video.
  2. Pick the quality: Full HD (1080p) is enough for most screens; Ultra HD (4K) needs Windows 10 or later.
  3. If you recorded your narration with Record, keep Use Recorded Timings and Narrations.
  4. If you inserted audio clips, for example from Murf, Murf recommends Don’t Use Recorded Timings and Narrations with 5 seconds per slide for decks narrated with its add-in, so that the clips play in order and slides without audio still appear. If you set your own After timings on the Transitions tab, keep Use Recorded Timings and Narrations instead.
  5. Choose Create Video and save the MP4.
  6. Watch the whole video once and check that no narration is cut off at the end of a slide.

On a Mac, choose File, then Export, set the file format to MP4, pick the quality, and keep the option to use recorded timings and narrations if you recorded with Record. The video plays anywhere, without PowerPoint, and can go straight into a learning platform or onto YouTube.

How do you add a voice-over to Google Slides?

Google Slides has no recording function. You have two ways:

  • Insert an audio file: record or generate the voice-over elsewhere and upload the MP3 or WAV to Google Drive first; Slides cannot insert a file straight from your computer. Then choose Insert, then Audio, pick the file and choose Insert. Select the audio icon and, under Format options, Audio playback, set it to start automatically.
  • Use an add-on: Murf’s Google Slides add-on writes and plays the narration from a script inside Slides, and the voice-over plays in slide-show mode. Like the PowerPoint add-in, it needs Murf’s Business plan.

Your own voice or an AI voice?

Checked Your own voice in PowerPoint AI voice with an add-in
Cost No extra cost with the PowerPoint desktop app Murf: $19 a month yearly with manual inserting, $66 a month yearly with the add-in
Time for a 20-slide deck About as long as the talk, plus retakes Writing the notes, then a few minutes of generating and listening
One slide changes Record that slide again Edit the note and update the audio
Several languages One speaker per language Same deck, different voice and language
Sounds like You, with your accent and energy Consistent, but listeners may notice it is synthetic
Works on Windows and Mac; not PowerPoint for the web Murf add-in: PowerPoint for Windows

Use your own voice for a pitch or a personal update, where your tone is part of the message. Use an AI voice for training and product decks that change every quarter or exist in several languages. If listeners could mistake the voice for a real person, say in the deck or the description that it is an AI voice.

Tips for a clear voice-over

  • Write for the ear. Short sentences, one idea each. About 130 to 150 words make one minute of narration.
  • Leave a beat at the start of each slide. Animations and transitions need a second before the voice starts.
  • Record in a quiet room and test your microphone first. A headset usually sounds better than a laptop microphone, which picks up the keyboard and the room.
  • Write tricky terms the way they should be spoken. If the AI voice misreads a number or abbreviation, write “twenty-five percent” or “Q three” in the notes instead.
  • Test the exported video once from start to finish before you send it out.

Sources