Generative AI in Action: Streamlining Presentation Creation

 

Introduction

In today’s fast-paced corporate environment, managers and executives frequently find themselves tasked with presenting complex information to diverse audiences. Crafting a compelling narrative for a presentation—whether it's about a project update, evaluating a technology, or pitching an idea—requires time, focus, and creativity. But what if there was a way to streamline this process while enhancing its effectiveness?

Generative AI can act as your creative assistant, helping you outline, structure, and refine presentations tailored to your audience's needs. Surely, it often acts as my personal assistance.

In this post, we’ll explore a real-world use case of leveraging Generative AI to create a presentation, demonstrating how it can save time, enhance communication, convince and possibly excite your audience.

From Blank Slide to a first Narrative

Picture this: you’re tasked with introducing a new technology to a mixed audience of experts and non-specialists. You sit down to create your slides, but the empty canvas stares back at you. You may have a title, but translating your knowledge into an engaging presentation feels daunting.

Some key questions arise:

• How do you structure your presentation for maximum clarity?
• How do you simplify complex jargon for non-experts?
• How can you ensure the presentation resonates with your audience?

These are common challenges for managers, often exacerbated by tight deadlines and competing priorities. Generative AI offers a solution.

Using Generative AI to develop your presentation

Define the Objectives

Before turning to Generative AI, start by clarifying the goals of your presentation. For instance:

1. Introduce a new technology in a clear and engaging manner.
2. Communicate key strengths, weaknesses, and use cases.
3. Establish yourself as a knowledgeable and approachable resource.

These objectives set the foundation for your AI-powered workflow.

Crafting a Prompt for Generative AI

A well-designed prompt is critical to generating meaningful results. Your prompt should provide:

1. Context: Describe your role (e.g., project manager, team lead) and the purpose of the presentation.
2. Audience Details: Specify the audience composition (e.g., non-specialists, executives).
3. Desired Outcomes: Outline the presentation’s goals, such as informing or inspiring action.
4. Format Preferences: Include details about the structure, tone (e.g., formal, engaging), and desired interactive elements (e.g., quizzes, demos).
5. Duration: Mention the expected length of the presentation.

Surely, there are many more elements you must consider when developing a compelling presentation. But to get started this provides you with a good first framework.

Applying the above to a particular case, you may start by:

I am a team manager preparing a 10-minute presentation introducing non-specialists to the basics of baking white bread. The presentation should be engaging, interactive, and designed to excite the audience about baking.

Refine and verify your proposal

Generative AI can draft slides, suggest narratives, or even create interactive elements. However, you remain the editor-in-chief:

• Verify Accuracy: Double-check facts and figures generated by the AI.
•  Tailor for Relevance: Ensure the content aligns with your goals and audience needs.
•  Add Personal Touch: Incorporate anecdotes, examples, or visuals to make the presentation uniquely yours.

A Practical Example: Introducing a Hobby with AI 

To illustrate, let’s say you want to use Generative AI to prepare a fun, engaging presentation about your hobby: baking bread. Here’s how AI can assist. Remember the key is to craft a meaningful prompt. 

Create a 10-minute presentation introducing non-experts to baking white bread. The tone should be fun and interactive, and the goal is to excite the audience about trying it themselves. Include step-by-step instructions, a quick quiz, and a slide with tips for beginners.

This looks good enough for a start. We may include some details about ourself. We may also add details on how language and tone of the presentation should be or that we would like to include content on common definitions, terms, etc. This is something you may experiment with and evaluate the differences in generated responses.

So, if we feed this prompt to Claude what will we get - head down to the end of the article to see for yourself. Claude create an engaging interactive presentation structure. It entered a little quiz and also questions throughout the presentation. A practical section on baking an actual bread makes the topic lively and memoryable.

What's in it for me?

Now, you may be a bit sceptical, thinking why should I care? I have heard that Generative AI hallucinates or something else. Surely, if you are the expert in the content and in creating presentations in the blink of an eye, then Generative AI may not have much to offer here. But I argue, that you may still learn a few tricks simply by seeing what narrative and structure is generated based on your understanding and provided input. If you are like me, then you may care about:

• Time Efficiency: Speeds up the initial outline and draft creation process. 
• Enhanced Creativity: Offers fresh perspectives and ideas.
• Tailored Outputs: Adapts content for diverse audiences and objectives. 
• Consistency: Ensures structured, cohesive presentations. 

By integrating Generative AI into your workflow, you can focus on refining and personalizing content rather than starting from scratch.

Call to action

Have you tried using Generative AI in your role? Share your experiences in the comments or reach out for a free guide on crafting effective AI prompts for presentations!

Let Generative AI draft your Job Profiles

Today’s post is about how I use Generative AI to streamline one of my day-to-day responsibilities. As a group manager, efficiency and precision are at the core of everything we do. Generative AI is a game changer to analyze and transform natural language. Naturally, I use Generative AI to draft documents. One such workflow involves drafting job profiles. So, let’s dig deeper.

The Traditional Way of Creating Job Profiles

Before Generative AI, whenever I had to create a job profile, I went through the same motions repeatedly:

• Solve writer’s block
• look at post profiles
• and a lot of back-and-forth.

I would get input from various sources, compile responsibilities, required skills, and experience, and then refine the language to ensure it was clear and engaging. This process cost time and often inconsistent.

Enter Generative AI

With Generative AI, we’ve cut down the time spent on drafting job profiles significantly. Here’s how it works in our day-to-day operations:

1. Data Input

We start by feeding the AI with data. This includes information about the role, key responsibilities, required skills, and any specific qualifications. We also input data from previous job postings and performance metrics to give the AI a comprehensive understanding of what we’re looking for.

2. AI-Powered Drafting

Once the data is in, the AI gets to work. It analyzes the input and generates a draft job profile. What’s amazing is that the AI can tailor the language to fit our company’s tone and branding, ensuring consistency across all our job postings.

3. Human Touch

While AI does the heavy lifting, we still add a human touch. We review the draft. This is critical, since not everything that the AI generates makes sense to us. So, we review and adjust as we go. This collaboration between human creativity and AI efficiency ensures that the final job profile is polished and precisely targeted.

Why Generative AI Rocks for Job Profiles

Here are a few reasons why I love using Generative AI for creating job profiles:

·         Time-Saver: Instead of researching countless companies and profiles to hit the right note when it comes to external communication, I simply have the AI integrate external posts and adapt them to what I need.

·         Consistency: The AI ensures that all job profiles maintain a consistent tone and structure.

·         Adaptability: As I enter a recruitment process, needs my change slightly around the core themes. The AI easily adapts to new requirements and ensures job profiles are always up to date.

Real-World Impact

Since implementing Generative AI, we’ve noticed a significant improvement in the quantity and quality of candidates applying for our positions. The AI’s ability to pinpoint key skills and qualifications has made our job profiles more appealing to top talent. Plus, the time saved on drafting profiles means we can focus more on the interview and selection process, ensuring we hire the best fit for our team.

Final Thoughts

Embracing Generative AI has been a game-changer for me. It’s not just about saving time; it’s about enhancing the entire recruitment process. By automating one of the more mundane tasks, we’ve freed up valuable resources to focus on innovation and growth. Sure, you will tweak here and make an edit there but to have that first draft surely is liberating.

If you’re in a similar role or industry, I highly recommend exploring how Generative AI can benefit your candidate search process. Trust me, once you see the potential, you’ll wonder how you ever managed without it.

If you have any questions or want to share your own AI experiences, feel free to drop a comment below.