Presentations with AI

Start with the message, not the slides

Most weak presentations have the same problem: lots of slides and no clear point. AI can make that worse, because it will happily produce 15 tidy slides on anything. So before you open any tool, answer three questions, one sentence each:

1. Who is listening? (Your manager, a client, classmates, a panel?)
2. What do you want them to do or believe at the end?
3. Why should they care?

For example:

I'm presenting to the five-person management team of our bakery. I want them to approve buying a delivery van this quarter. It will cut our late deliveries and save money we currently pay dispatch riders.

That's your presentation in miniature. Every slide either supports it or gets cut.

Get an outline, then edit it hard

Give an AI assistant (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Copilot) your three sentences and the facts it can't know, and ask for an outline, not finished slides:

I'm presenting to our bakery's management team (5 people, 10 minutes) in
Port Harcourt. I want them to approve buying a used delivery van this
quarter. Facts: we pay dispatch riders about ₦450,000 a month; 1 in 8
deliveries is late; two corporate customers have complained this year; a
reliable used van costs about ₦9.5 million plus ₦180,000 a month to run.
Suggest a 6-slide outline in a problem, cost, solution, next step story.
For each slide: a headline that states the point, and 2-3 bullet points.

A typical outline comes back like this:

1. A van would fix our delivery problem and pay for itself in about 3 years
2. 1 in 8 of our deliveries is late, and customers have noticed
   - 2 corporate clients complained this year
   - Late deliveries risk repeat orders
3. Dispatch riders cost us ₦5.4m a year
   - ₦450,000 a month, rising
4. A used van costs ₦9.5m, then ₦180,000 a month
   - Saves about ₦270,000 a month on riders
5. It pays for itself in about 35 months
6. Decision needed: approve the purchase this quarter

Now read it as you, the person who knows the room:

• Check every number. ₦450,000 − ₦180,000 = ₦270,000 saved a month, and ₦9.5m ÷ ₦270,000 ≈ 35 months. The AI got that right this time; it won't always.
• Cut or merge what your audience doesn't need. Slides 4 and 5 could be one.
• Add what it doesn't know. If the managing director's first question will be "what about the rainy season?", add the answer.

Slides people can actually read

Your slides support you; they don't replace you. Compare a slide written like a document with one written for a screen:

Before:

Delivery Performance
- Over the past six months we have observed that approximately one in
  every eight deliveries made by our dispatch riders has arrived later than
  the time agreed with the customer, which has led to complaints
- Two of our corporate customers have formally complained this year and one
  has indicated they may consider other suppliers if this continues
- Dispatch riders are often unavailable during peak periods

After:

1 in 8 of our deliveries is late
- 2 corporate clients complained this year
- One may move to another bakery
- Riders aren't available at peak times

What changed:

• The headline states the point. "Delivery Performance" is a topic; "1 in 8 of our deliveries is late" is a finding.
• Short lines, about 8 words or fewer each, and 3 to 5 of them.
• One big number the room can remember.
• The detail moves to your speaker notes, where you say it out loud.

AI is good at exactly this kind of tightening:

Rewrite this slide: a headline that states the point, then at most 4
bullets of no more than 8 words each. Move the rest into speaker notes
of about 60 words, in a confident, friendly tone.

Build the deck and make it yours

Use the tool you already have:

• PowerPoint or Google Slides: pick a built-in theme and paste each slide's headline and bullets. One theme, one or two fonts, a few colours.
• Canva: choose a presentation template and replace the text. Fast, polished results.
• AI slide generators such as Copilot in PowerPoint, Gemini in Google Slides, Canva's AI tools or Gamma can draft a whole deck from a prompt, depending on your plan. Treat the result as a rough draft and edit it hard.

Before you present:

• Say it out loud. If a sentence sounds unnatural spoken, rewrite it in your own words.
• Time yourself. Allow about one to two minutes per slide.
• End with a clear ask: "I'd like approval to buy the van this quarter."

Try it

Finally, build three real slides in PowerPoint, Google Slides or Canva: a title slide, your rewritten training slide with its notes, and a closing slide with a clear ask.