empower® PowerPoint Charts: Flexible Add-in

Q: What is empower® Chart Creation and who uses it?

empower® Chart Creation is a PowerPoint add-in in the empower® Suite for quickly creating complex charts and reports. Waterfall, Gantt, Mekko, and combination charts can be built with far less formatting effort. With Excel integration and an Excel link manager, linked content stays current. The result is professional charts and reports created easily, consistently, and efficiently. empower® Chart Creation is designed for companies of all sizes that need to create complex charts and reports in PowerPoint – from consulting and sales to marketing, finance, management, and project teams. Wherever data must be presented clearly, professionally, and consistently, empower® boosts efficiency and delivers reliable results.

Q: What can the empower® AI Chart Assistant do?

The empower® AI Chart Assistant is available directly in PowerPoint as a chat-based assistant. Describe the chart you need, and it creates it on the current slide - either in an existing placeholder or aligned with objects already on the slide. The assistant also takes the slide layout and your current selection into account. You can also edit existing charts with a prompt. Replace data, add CAGR and growth arrows, insert delta and value lines, or change point and series colors. For Gantt charts, you can add bars, milestones, date lines, markers, phases, and status elements in the notes areas. The result is a standard empower® chart that can be edited with all the usual empower® tools. Colleagues can continue working with it even if they do not have access to the AI features. The AI Chart Assistant is currently in beta and is being continuously enhanced.

Q: How secure is our data when we use the AI features?

empower® Chart Creation is a locally installed add-in. When the AI features are not in use, your chart and source data remain on the user’s computer. When you use the AI features, only the content required for the specific request is sent to the language model configured by your company. Processing therefore takes place within the contractual relationship you already have with your model provider, including the terms you have agreed to for data processing, storage, and use for model training. The AI features are disabled by default and enabled selectively. You decide whether to make them available, when to activate them, and which parts of your organization can use them. empower GmbH is ISO 27001 certified and develops its software in accordance with rigorous security standards. For more information, visit our Security at empower page.

Q: Can we connect the AI Chart Assistant to our internal systems?

Yes, upon request. Looking ahead, empower® Chart Creation can connect through open AI protocols such as MCP (Model Context Protocol) to your organization’s central AI gateway—the environment through which systems such as ERP, data warehouses, BI platforms, CRM systems, and SharePoint are made available to AI applications. For users, one prompt in PowerPoint is all it takes. The required figures are retrieved from the relevant system through the gateway and turned directly into a chart. There is no need to export data, prepare it separately, or copy and paste it. For IT teams, this means there is no need to build a separate integration for every data source. Instead, the connection can use a standard interface. Existing permissions, authentication, and logging configured in the gateway continue to apply, helping keep integration and maintenance effort low. If you are planning this type of setup, contact us. We will work with you to define the integration for your specific project.

Q: How do I create complex charts in PowerPoint?

With empower® Chart Creation, you can quickly create complex charts directly in PowerPoint - easily, consistently, and efficiently. Simply choose the chart type, enter your data, or link the chart to Excel. Charts within placeholders are automatically formatted, and elements like arrows and lines are neatly arranged. Professional charts are ready in minutes, eliminating the need for time-consuming manual formatting.

Q: How does Excel linking work in empower® Chart Creation & do Excel links stay intact?

empower® Chart Creation lets you link Excel data directly to PowerPoint charts. Data ranges are linked once and can be updated anytime. Linked charts, text, and shapes stay up to date. The built-in Excel Link Manager clearly shows which data sources are connected to which elements and when they were last updated. Once Excel links are created, they remain active and can be updated, edited, or opened at any time. Changes in the Excel file are automatically applied, ensuring your charts and reports always reflect the latest data — no manual checks required.

Impressive work

Nothing else matters

Impressive work

Nothing else matters

Impressive work

Nothing else matters

Impressive work

Nothing else matters

Easy

With empower^® Chart Creation, charts and reports come together fast. Data is visualized with precision, Excel updates are applied automatically, and formatting is handled without manual effort.

Efficient

Even complex charts with many data points and design elements can be created quickly and easily. In practice, users regularly save 50% of their time. That gives teams more time to focus on content and make well-informed decisions.

Brand-compliant

empower^® Chart Creation automatically aligns modern charts within placeholders and maintains balanced proportions, spacing, and typography. Arrows, lines, breaks, number formats, and axes can all be adjusted precisely to deliver visually consistent results.

Charts from a single prompt

Drop in an Excel file, URL, or screenshot and get a finished chart. The empower^® AI Chart Assistant creates data charts and Gantt charts tailored to your slide, complete with Excel links, CAGR arrows, delta lines, and milestones - all from a single prompt. Need to fine-tune the result? Just keep typing. It can make complex charts and recurring reports significantly faster to create. See the difference with your first report.

System requirements

empower^®supports all common Office versions, including 2019 and Office 365. It is compatible with all current Windows versions, Citrix, and Terminal Server.

Optimized for Microsoft 365

empower^® is specifically optimized for Microsoft 365. Through close collaboration with Microsoft, we ensure that empower^® remains compatible with the latest Office releases at all times.

Comprehensive functionality

empower^® empower® Chart Creation offers much more than basic features. With over 40 chart types, automatic formatting, and smart elements like arrows, lines, and breaks, creating high-end charts is fast and consistent.

Seamless
conversion

Convert existing PowerPoint charts or charts from third‑party add-ins into empower® charts with one click. Continue working in PowerPoint – no rebuilding, no workflow interruptions.

Structured
support

Switching from your current charting add-in to empower^® follows a structured end‑to‑end process – from trial to rollout and chart migration – so teams get productive fast and organizations benefit immediately.

Challenge
For many years, Bayer used another PowerPoint chart-creation add-in across parts of the organization. As adoption grew to more than 6,000 licensed users, licensing and administrative costs increased significantly. Bayer needed a more scalable solution that could support professional chart creation, ensure brand consistency, and make efficient charting available to a much broader user base without adding more per-user licensing complexity.

Process
Bayer conducted an extensive proof of concept to evaluate empower® as an alternative. Users confirmed that all essential charting capabilities were covered and that existing charts could be transitioned smoothly through chart conversion. With only a few exceptions, more than 95 percent of users approved the solution, allowing Bayer to transition to empower^® at the end of the existing license term.

Result
Bayer has now used empower^® successfully for many years. The transition has helped Bayer save millions of euros in licensing and administrative costs while maintaining strong adoption across the organization. Demand for efficient chart creation remains high, and empower^® continues to deliver consistently strong usage and user satisfaction.

Challenge
DHL Post & Paket needed an economically sustainable and scalable solution for creating charts in PowerPoint. Beyond the high licensing costs of its previous software, license management posed a significant administrative burden. Each year, the company had to assess its actual licensing requirements, involving an external service provider and engaging in multi-week coordination efforts.

Process
Following a comprehensive testing phase with a broad group of users, DHL Post & Paket selected empower^® as a company-wide add-in for PowerPoint charts. The solution was implemented quickly and deployed across the organization to approximately 24,000 users under a corporate license agreement.

Result
By introducing the empower^® corporate license, DHL Post & Paket eliminated the complex annual license management process entirely, as all 24,000 users were centrally provisioned with the software. This increased organization-wide productivity, reduced annual licensing costs, and significantly streamlined administrative operations.

Challenge
Brose previously used another chart creation add-in for PowerPoint with more than 1,000 licenses. Although all licenses were required, the company had to reduce the number of licenses due to cost constraints. As a result, many employees were limited to using PowerPoint’s native features for chart creation.

Process
Following a comprehensive evaluation, Brose rolled out empower^® to all 16,000 employees. Cost-effective terms under a corporate license agreement ensured that expenses would remain predictable and controlled over the long term.

Result
The company now saves substantial annual licensing expenses while providing professional charting capabilities to its entire workforce. This supports Brose’s broader strategy of maintaining IT costs within a sustainable and predictable range while meeting the demands of a modern digital workplace.

The smart way to create charts with empower^® Chart Creation

"empower^® Chart Creation plays a key role for us […]. We no longer need any additional PowerPoint add-ins.“

Thomas Röhrich, Head of Brand Communications, Continental AG

With the release of version 8, Continental introduced empower^® Chart Creation. Employees quickly recognized the value of creating complex charts in PowerPoint faster and more efficiently. Automated chart formatting saved valuable time and made the tool easy to use. Existing charts created with other charting add-ins could be converted into empower® charts in seconds, allowing users to continue working without interruption.

Standard & Poor's boosts productivity by 30 percent with empower^®

"We consider empower^® the gold standard for how Office products should be developed."

Alyssa Le, VP Business Development

Like many organizations in the financial services industry, S&P creates a high volume of PowerPoint content, which can be highly time-intensive, particularly when working with complex charts and tables.

The company aimed to reduce the time required to create and format presentations while ensuring compliance and maintaining clear audit trails for all presentation changes.

More time for what truly matters

S&P rolled out empower^® to 10,000 users. Its comprehensive productivity features streamline the creation of tables of contents and automate updates. Built-in tracking makes it easy to trace changes, and table and chart styles can be applied or modified with just a few clicks.

Since implementing empower^®, overall productivity has increased by an average of 30 percent. This has freed up significant time that can now be dedicated to higher-value activities such as analyzing and evaluating data.

"empower^® enables our users to create professional presentations in a fraction of the time. (...) Instead of managing multiple standalone add-ins, we now benefit from a comprehensive solution that reduces technical complexity and makes strong financial sense."

Felix Flüs, Head of Marketing & Communications

The best alternative to the Microsoft SharePoint slide library

SharePoint is often used for slide management in companies. However, with SharePoint 2013, Microsoft abolished the slide library component because of poor customer adoption. SharePoint’s slide library integrated clumsily with the slide library in PowerPoint, its search was insufficient search, and it was unstable. The slide library of empower^® solves all those problems. It completely replaces your SharePoint slide library and offers further advantages for you.

Efficient slide library without SharePoint

Make all your PowerPoint content available to the entire company in the empower^® slide library. Share existing content and strengthen collaboration across the organization. Enhance your brand communication by embedding your design guidelines directly into PowerPoint. Deliver all your brand assets directly in PowerPoint. At the same time, you and your colleagues can work more productively and save time for the really important tasks.

empower^® Chart Creation is a PowerPoint add-in in the empower^® Suite for quickly creating complex charts and reports. Waterfall, Gantt, Mekko, and combination charts can be built with far less formatting effort. With Excel integration and an Excel link manager, linked content stays current. The result is professional charts and reports created easily, consistently, and efficiently.

empower^® Chart Creation is designed for companies of all sizes that need to create complex charts and reports in PowerPoint – from consulting and sales to marketing, finance, management, and project teams. Wherever data must be presented clearly, professionally, and consistently, empower^® boosts efficiency and delivers reliable results.

The empower^® AI Chart Assistant is available directly in PowerPoint as a chat-based assistant. Describe the chart you need, and it creates it on the current slide - either in an existing placeholder or aligned with objects already on the slide. The assistant also takes the slide layout and your current selection into account.

You can also edit existing charts with a prompt. Replace data, add CAGR and growth arrows, insert delta and value lines, or change point and series colors. For Gantt charts, you can add bars, milestones, date lines, markers, phases, and status elements in the notes areas.

The result is a standard empower^® chart that can be edited with all the usual empower^® tools. Colleagues can continue working with it even if they do not have access to the AI features. The AI Chart Assistant is currently in beta and is being continuously enhanced.

You can work with four types of input:

Values entered directly in the chat
An Excel file stored locally or online
A website URL containing the required figures
A screenshot of a chart that was not created with empower®—with values, proportions, and colors reproduced as closely as possible

When you use an Excel file, the assistant creates a link to the source file by default. This keeps the chart connected to its underlying data, so the source remains traceable and the chart can be updated at any time. If you prefer to copy only the current values into the chart’s embedded mini-Excel, simply specify that in your prompt.

Your source files remain unchanged. The assistant reads the data and transfers it into the chart, but it never modifies the contents of an existing Excel file.

During the current beta phase, we recommend using Excel files without extremely large data sets.

The AI Chart Assistant uses your organization’s own language model access. Your company provides its own LLM API key, giving you control over which model is used, how it is accessed, and under which terms and pricing. You are not locked into a predefined model selection. If your organization changes models later, your workflow in PowerPoint remains the same.

You can also define preferences in the user settings, such as color conventions or communication style. These preferences are applied to every request. During setup, we work with you to determine which specific models and providers will be supported.

empower^® Chart Creation is a locally installed add-in. When the AI features are not in use, your chart and source data remain on the user’s computer.

When you use the AI features, only the content required for the specific request is sent to the language model configured by your company. Processing therefore takes place within the contractual relationship you already have with your model provider, including the terms you have agreed to for data processing, storage, and use for model training.

The AI features are disabled by default and enabled selectively. You decide whether to make them available, when to activate them, and which parts of your organization can use them.

empower GmbH is ISO 27001 certified and develops its software in accordance with rigorous security standards. For more information, visit our Security at empower page.

Yes, upon request. Looking ahead, empower^® Chart Creation can connect through open AI protocols such as MCP (Model Context Protocol) to your organization’s central AI gateway—the environment through which systems such as ERP, data warehouses, BI platforms, CRM systems, and SharePoint are made available to AI applications.

For users, one prompt in PowerPoint is all it takes. The required figures are retrieved from the relevant system through the gateway and turned directly into a chart. There is no need to export data, prepare it separately, or copy and paste it.

For IT teams, this means there is no need to build a separate integration for every data source. Instead, the connection can use a standard interface. Existing permissions, authentication, and logging configured in the gateway continue to apply, helping keep integration and maintenance effort low.

If you are planning this type of setup, contact us. We will work with you to define the integration for your specific project.

General-purpose AI assistants are highly capable when it comes to text, research, and accessing company data. For chart creation, however, their capabilities are limited by PowerPoint’s native features - they can only insert chart elements that PowerPoint itself supports.

That leaves important gaps in professional reporting. PowerPoint does not offer a native Gantt chart type, its waterfall charts support only a single data series, and Mekko and Marimekko charts are not available. Features such as growth and CAGR arrows, delta and value lines, and axis breaks are also missing from PowerPoint’s standard charting tools.

empower^® Chart Creation includes its own chart engine, providing more than 40 chart types and a broad range of specialized chart elements - independent of what PowerPoint supports natively. The empower^® AI Chart Assistant works directly with these advanced chart objects.

The two approaches complement each other. You can continue sourcing your data wherever you do today. empower^® then turns that data into a fully featured business chart on your slide - with an Excel link back to the source whenever needed.

With empower^® Chart Creation, you can quickly create complex charts directly in PowerPoint - easily, consistently, and efficiently. Simply choose the chart type, enter your data, or link the chart to Excel. Charts within placeholders are automatically formatted, and elements like arrows and lines are neatly arranged. Professional charts are ready in minutes, eliminating the need for time-consuming manual formatting.

empower^® Chart Creation lets you link Excel data directly to PowerPoint charts. Data ranges are linked once and can be updated anytime. Linked charts, text, and shapes stay up to date. The built-in Excel Link Manager clearly shows which data sources are connected to which elements and when they were last updated.

Once Excel links are created, they remain active and can be updated, edited, or opened at any time. Changes in the Excel file are automatically applied, ensuring your charts and reports always reflect the latest data — no manual checks required.

Yes! Existing PowerPoint charts and charts from third-party add-ins can be converted into empower^® charts in one click and you can continue working without interruption.

Modern business charts, made simple

At a glance

Modern charts: It’s time for a game changer