How to create a presentation with AI, step by step

To create a presentation with AI, describe your topic, your audience and how long you will speak to an assistant: it suggests an outline, drafts each slide, and then a dedicated tool or your usual software handles the design. This tutorial walks you through six steps, from your core message to the final check.

Before you start

You need three things:

• An AI assistant, free or paid, for the outline and the text.
• A design tool: your usual presentation software, or a tool that generates slides directly.
• Your source material: notes, figures, a reference document. AI should shape your ideas, not invent them.

Keep one rule in mind: do not paste confidential data (unpublished internal figures, customer information) into a tool whose terms you have not read.

Which tool for which job?

There are two approaches. In the first, a general assistant gives you the outline and the text, and you build the slides yourself. In the second, a tool produces the whole deck, layout included. Based on the site’s product pages, checked on October 22, 2026:

Tool	What it does for a presentation	Watch out for
Microsoft Copilot	Built into PowerPoint with a Microsoft 365 subscription	The free version is not enough for PowerPoint
Claude	Creates files, including presentations	You will still polish the file in your software
Genspark	Agent with a dedicated slides tool	Free tier runs on credits (100 a day, lifetime cap)
Kimi	Agent mode that produces decks and spreadsheets	Privacy rules governed by Chinese law
Manus	General-purpose agent that chains the steps of a full task	Check the output: the vendor does not describe a dedicated slides feature

Assistant	Free	Paid from	Web search	Agent mode	Voice	Images
Microsoft Copilot	Limited	$9.99/mo	Yes	—	Yes	Yes
Claude	Limited	$20/mo	Yes	Yes	—	—
Genspark	Limited	$24.99/mo	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Kimi	Limited	$19/mo	Yes	Yes	—	—
Manus	Limited	$20/mo	Yes	Yes	—	—

An empty cell in this table means the vendor does not state the information, not that the feature is missing.

Step 1: define your message and your audience

This is the step AI cannot do for you. Before opening any tool, answer four questions in writing: who are you talking to? What should they remember? How much time do you have? What do you want them to do afterwards? A ten-minute pitch to a board has nothing in common with a one-hour training session for beginners.

Step 2: get an outline

Write a prompt, meaning an instruction, built on those answers. For example: “I’m presenting the results of a customer satisfaction survey to the sales team in 15 minutes. Goal: agree on two priority actions. Suggest an 8-slide outline with a title and one key sentence for each slide.”

Then ask for adjustments: “merge slides 3 and 4”, “add a slide on the survey’s limitations”. Only move on once the outline works for you. Our prompt generator helps you build a complete instruction if you are stuck.

Step 3: write the slide content

Ask for the content one slide at a time: a short title, three or four bullet points at most, and speaker notes. Speaker notes are valuable: the slide stays light and you know what to say.

Provide your own figures and sources. If you let the AI fill gaps on its own, it may produce a hallucination, meaning an invented number or fact stated with confidence.

Step 4: generate the slides

Depending on the tool you chose:

1. In your usual software: paste the content, apply a template, adjust the layout. This is the safest way to stick to your organization’s brand guidelines.
2. With an assistant that creates files: ask for a presentation file based on the approved content, then open it and polish it.
3. With a specialized agent: describe the result you want and provide your outline. The agent works through the steps and delivers a designed deck, which you still need to review.

Check yourself The tool gives you a slide with a percentage you never provided. What do you do?

You do not keep it as is. Either you find that figure in a reliable source and cite it, or you delete it. An unsourced number in a presentation can damage your credibility the moment someone asks where it came from.

Step 5: add visuals

A well-chosen illustration beats three bullet points. Image generation lets you create a custom visual from a description. Keep it simple: a consistent style across all slides, no text inside generated images (it often comes out garbled) and no imitation of real people or brands. Our guide to generating images with AI explains the method, and you can go further with a short animated clip using our guide to creating videos with AI.

Step 6: check the deck and make it yours

Review every slide as if a colleague had written it:

• Facts: does every number have a source?
• Tone: does it sound like you? Replace empty phrases.
• Rights: can you reuse the images and content for your purpose? Our article on AI and copyright covers the key principles.
• Transparency: if your audience might wonder whether an image is real, say it is generated. Our guide to spotting AI-generated images explains what others will notice.

Finally, rehearse out loud. That is often when you spot the slide you do not need.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Asking for everything at once. “Make me a presentation about our project” gives a bland result. Go step by step: message, outline, content, design.
• Keeping too much text. AI tends to fill space. If a slide has more than four bullet points, split it or move the detail into the notes.
• Accepting a number without a source. A plausible percentage is not a true percentage.
• Forgetting your audience. Jargon in front of beginners, or the reverse, loses people. Remind the tool who is listening with each new request.
• Presenting without rehearsing. A deck you have never said out loud is still the AI’s, not yours.

The expected result

By the end of this tutorial, you have a presentation built around a clear message, with light slides, speaker notes, consistent visuals and sourced figures. You also know how to edit it, because you approved every step.