AI is having a transformative effect at a pace that makes the spread of social media “quaint” by comparison. For presentation experts, the reality is stark: public speaking remains a major societal fear, and now there is an easy way to avoid it. Just fire up the chat window (or AI presentation software), ask it to make you a pitch deck, and voila, there it is. Now you can walk into that meeting and wow the audience. Right? Well, not exactly.
AI can be leveraged to create amazing presentations, but you need to avoid having AI slop all over your face. You must play an active role in your relationship with AI and teach it the parts of human interactions it doesn’t know.
You’re the Expert
Remember that while AI has access to global business knowledge, only you understand the particulars of your relationship with an audience and the product or service you offer. For example, was this a cold call lead from your website, or was it someone you’ve worked with before at a different company? The more context you can give your AI companion, the better, and more importantly, don’t take what it offers you without question. Read the replies and the content it provides carefully, and ask yourself whether you agree with them.
Use a Strong Prompt
Set as detailed a picture as possible for your AI minion. You still need to practice the fundamentals of good communication and focus on the audience. As Nancy Duarte, a renowned communications and presentation skills trainer, says, “What they need to hear is more important than what you want to say.”
Why did the audience invite you? What are they concerned about? Why do they want to meet now? Once you’ve thought about these points and asked some questions of the people inviting you to present, you are ready to prompt AI. Here’s an example:
“Acting as a professional writer, create an outline for a 45-minute presentation to the C-suite of the Acme Corp. You can learn more about them at (URL). They’re considering whether to invest in a new facility in Akron, Ohio. They are concerned about the lack of space in their New Hampshire warehouse and their outdated milling equipment. Their main competitor just announced a new, state-of-the-art facility; you can read about it at (URL). They’re also concerned about rising construction and fuel costs and fitting those into next year’s budget. My company has never worked with them, and they asked for examples of similar projects. Keep in mind what our company can do and the services we provide as you create the outline. My goal in this meeting is to show we’ve done our homework on the realities of construction for various locations in the U.S. and that we’re experienced in balancing costs with innovation.”
Phew, seems like a lot, right? But it’s applying the vital guardrails that will keep your presentation focused on what your audience needs to know from you.
The formula for this prompt is:
Why were you invited + who is the audience + what are their concerns + what do they need from me/us to make a decision or take the next step? + what is my/our goal in the meeting.
Layering in Storytelling
Once you’ve gone back and forth with the LLM and you feel like you have a strong outline, the next step is finding ways to integrate storytelling into the presentation. The foundational truth of communication is that humans retain and pay attention to information delivered in a story format.
There are three key levels where you can weave in an effective story:
- 1. The overall flow of the presentation
- 2. During data and charts
- 3. At key points connected to a direct personal experience.
Stories can trip up many presenters, but to guide AI, having basic knowledge of storytelling helps. No one is saying you need to craft the next War and Peace, but the idea is to figure out where you can apply a narrative structure. The basics of that structure go like this: Give it a setting (Our company used to shy away from 3D printing) and then a catalyst for change (but costs increases made us reconsider), then the change (so we decided to run a pilot), then explain what happened (The results were pretty disappointing as you can see in this bar graph.), and then wrap up with what changed (As a result we decided to partner with a 3D printer.). To dig deeper into story structure, I highly recommend searching for “The Pixar Story Prompt.”
Combine that foundational knowledge with AI’s knowledge of you and your company. LLMs initially couldn’t remember your past chat history. The more recent releases now have a robust memory and can apply what they’ve learned. You can also train it by feeding it past case studies, emails, reviews, and more.
Now you’re ready to prompt. Here’s what it can look like:
“Acting as a corporate communications writer, search the outline we’ve created and compare it to all of our past conversations and the information you’ve learned about our company, and highlight opportunities for me to weave in stories. I prefer using the Pixar Story Prompt as my narrative structure, so please use that structure when you share your ideas with me.”
With the execution of those two basic steps, you will have an amazing starting point for your foundation. From there, the messaging, design, and delivery can enhance your presentation to the next level of effectiveness.
Mike Teixeira is president and founder of DECK, a presentation strategy firm with offices in Portsmouth and Boston. For more information, visit presentationsbydeck.com. Teixeira can be reached at mike@presentationsbydeck.com.
