AI presentations:a faster first draft,with your message

To create a presentation with an AI presentation maker, you tell the tool your goal, your audience and your source material, then revise the draft for content and design. Microsoft Copilot builds a draft in PowerPoint from a prompt or a Word document, Gemini generates and edits slides in Google Slides, and tools such as Canva or Gamma produce a designed deck from a short description. The core message, the figures and the final sign off stay with you.

Nikolai Schöbel and Jeremias Burger

Co-founders of Scalableloops GmbH. Nikolai Schöbel leads online marketing and AI strategy, Jeremias Burger the AI architecture. Both build AI systems and train teams on them in their own agency work.

Which AI tools create presentations?

Microsoft Copilot in PowerPoint creates a draft from a prompt in which you describe the topic and audience, or from a file. According to Microsoft, Copilot builds a deck with images and speaker notes from a Word document. Microsoft recommends starting from your organisation’s standard template so that Copilot keeps its design and layouts.

Gemini in Google Slides generates and edits slides from a prompt, creates images and can build new slides from documents in Google Drive. Google states that generating slides is currently available on desktop and in English only. Before rolling it out, check what is actually available in your plan and your language.

Presentation tools with AI such as Canva and Gamma create a designed deck from a short description. According to the vendor, Gamma also takes pasted text and uploaded documents such as Word and PDF files as a starting point. These tools deliver an attractive result quickly, which you then adapt to your brand.

AI chats such as ChatGPT or Claude do not produce finished slides, but they are well suited to working out the outline, key messages and slide text beforehand. Our guide to using AI for writing explains how to get good text out of them.

Which prompts produce a usable draft?

A good prompt names the occasion, audience, goal and source material. An example for an AI chat: “I am presenting a project to introduce a new ticketing system in customer service to the management team. The goal is a budget decision. Using the attached report, create an outline with no more than one key message per slide. Write each message as a full sentence and note which figure from the report supports it.”

In PowerPoint with Copilot, a shorter form works: “Create a presentation from this document for customers in the construction trade. Keep slide text short and add speaker notes.” You can then edit individual slides with prompts such as: “Simplify this slide with less text and add a suitable image.”

A critical follow up question to the AI is useful at the end: “Which statements in this presentation are not supported by the source material?” The answer does not replace your own check, but it quickly shows where to look more closely.

Where are the limits, and what do you check before presenting?

The most common error in AI presentations is figures and facts that sound plausible but are wrong. A language model tends to fill gaps with general knowledge or invented detail, especially when the source material is thin. On a slide, such a number looks just as credible as a correct one.

The second error is blandness: the draft is neatly structured but says nothing that would not appear in any other deck on the topic. The only remedy is to add your own examples, your own figures and a clear recommendation.

Check every presentation with the same questions before using it. Does every figure match its source? Does every chart match the data? Are quotes and names correct? Does the deck contain confidential details the audience should not see? And does every slide say something that matters to this audience?

What does your team need to use AI for presentations well?

Article 4 of the EU AI Act has applied since 2 February 2025 to every organisation that uses AI, even if the team only works with an AI chat. Since 27 July 2026 it applies in amended form: you have to take measures that support the development of AI literacy, but you do not owe a specific level of competence for any individual. No certificate is required. For details, see our article on the AI literacy obligation under Article 4.

For presentations, that means anyone building slides with AI should know which documents may go in, how to spot invented figures and how to make the tool work inside the company template. A joint exercise on a real presentation from your own work achieves the most.