Recently, I’ve noticed an increasing number of generic presentations. Generic, meaning those generated by AI—not just the slides, but also the script.
I even witnessed a live event where several presenters stared at their laptops, reading notes written from start to finish by ChatGPT. Long, unnatural sentences, zero eye contact with the audience.
But that’s not the kind of assistance we want from AI.
So how can we collaborate with AI to create a truly great presentation?
Garr Reynolds summarized it best in the following video.
It’s worth watching the whole video. In short: a good presentation is like a cheeseburger (although there is also an analogy of an iceberg). If we rely solely on AI, we end up with a cheeseburger made of two dry buns, without the meat and vegetables inside. Meanwhile, the essence of a great presentation lies in the human perspective: What personal insights do we have on the topic being presented? What conclusions do we draw from it? What emotions do we perceive in it?
These are aspects with which AI—at least for now—struggles significantly.
So, when creating your next presentation:
- Do research with AI.
- Ask AI to create an outline for the presentation.
- Refine the outline by adding your own thoughts (ideally written down beforehand on paper).
- Ask AI to generate texts for the slides.
- Edit the texts based on your reflections.
- Create the slides.
- Ask AI to polish them.
For me, the most effective approach is to involve AI at different stages of the presentation creation process and alternate between my own work and AI’s assistance.
Relying on AI to create a presentation for you in 30 seconds is a surefire way to fail. The audience will notice—guaranteed.