The last presentation you built probably took 4-6 hours…if you were lucky.
You spent 30 minutes thinking through your actual message. The rest was formatting hell: aligning text boxes, searching for the right icon, fixing bullet indents, making slides "look finished."
Here's what changed for me: I stopped trying to make AI do everything at once. The tools that promise "instant presentations" (Gamma, Beautiful.ai, Genspark) give you instant mediocrity—they are about a B- with almost no effort—that might work for some uses, but if you want to create high-quality presentations, I have a system that is a solid A.
The breakthrough was splitting the work into three stages—narrative, design, and refinement—and using the best AI tool for each.
Result: I now build presentations in 90 minutes that used to take me half a workday. They're sharper, better designed, and actually get the message across. Here's the system.
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The 90-Minute AI Presentation System
The exact AI workflow I use to build executive-ready decks in under two hours.
It takes most people at least a few hours to assemble a 10-slide presentation. With 71% of businesses already leveraging generative AI in their presentation workflows and the average professional spending hours each week crafting slide decks, the AI presentation market isn't just disrupting how we create; it’s providing a better way to communicate, and it will do so to the tune of $9 billion by 2033.
Today, audiences remember only 10% of what they hear, but 65% when visuals are added. And as most people demand presentations under 20 minutes with minimal text, AI tools are emerging as the secret weapon for time-strapped professionals who need to transform complex data into memorable visual stories. The question is no longer whether to use AI for presentations, but how to harness its power to join the revolution that's already transforming boardrooms, classrooms, and virtual meetings across the globe (Source: SlideUplift).
Eventually, I think we’ll see a real jump in quality when agents can create slides from start to finish. But that will only happen over time and only after you provide comprehensive instructions and examples. Until then, I’ve been refining the steps you can use today. Here’s my AI-powered process.
ChatGPT: Outline Your Story
This is where I start. I am going to use ChatGPT for this example, but you can use your favorite chatbot, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, or Claude. You can use this to create a structured outline for your presentation.
ChatGPT is your strategic thinking partner. Not a slide generator—a storyteller.
Your job: Give it context and constraints. I often start by using Wisprflow to speak about what I want the presentation to cover. Sometimes it’s long and rambling as I walk my dog, which is a great way to multitask. Or I start typing my thoughts and ask for help organizing them.
Its job: Turn fuzzy thinking into a tight narrative flow.
The Prompt Framework
Here’s a simple prompt that will get you started. You can type this, or, as I do, talk to ChatGPT and allow it to structure my input.
Context: [What's happening that makes this presentation necessary?]
Audience: [Who's in the room? What do they care about?]
Goal: [What decision or action do you need?]
Constraint: [Time limit, slide count, tone]
Build me a [X]-slide outline that [specific outcome].
Each slide should have one core message.
Include suggested visual concepts where relevant.
Real Example:
This works very well if you have integration between your ChatGPT instance and your company's knowledge.
Context: Our Q4 metrics show declining engagement in our enterprise segment
Audience: C-suite, 15 minutes, they want solutions not excuses
Goal: Get approval for a 3-month pilot program with a new onboarding flow
Constraint: 8 slides maximum, data-driven but forward-looking
Build me an 8-slide outline that moves from "here's what we're seeing" to "here's what we should test." Each slide should build urgency for the pilot program. Include suggested data visualizations.
What you'll get: A slide-by-slide narrative with:
Clear progression (problem → insight → solution)
Suggested data points or visuals
Messaging hierarchy
Pro move: If you have ChatGPT memory enabled, it remembers your company context, past presentations, and communication style. If not, save a "presentation context" doc you paste in first.
Also, if you’re like me and hate stock photos, you can use ChatGPT, Midjourney, Gemini, or any number of image generators to create on-brand visuals that match your deck.
Time: 20-25 minutes (including back-and-forth refinement)
Manus — Transform Outline into Designed Slides
Manus.im is where the magic happens. It's an easy-to-use AI presentation builder that turns your outline into designed slides—not just content in boxes, but actual visual layouts. Also, GenSpark seems to do a good job from what I read, but I haven’t put in the hours to be able to recommend that yet.
The secret sauce: You can upload your own template or reuse a previous deck as your design foundation. This means your slides stay on-brand instead of looking like everyone else's AI-generated deck.
The Process:
Paste your ChatGPT outline into Manus.
Select your template (upload a previous deck you're proud of, or use one of theirs).
Add styling instruction: "Match the visual style, color palette, and typography of this template. Keep layouts clean with one key message per slide."
Generate.
What you'll get:
Slides with proper visual hierarchy
Content formatted and laid out
Images/icons placed contextually
Consistent design across all slides
Common mistake: Skipping the template step. Generic Manus output looks fine, but forgettable. Using your own template makes it look like your deck.
Weaknesses: The big weakness I see with Manus.IM is that it does some funky formatting and doesn’t group long bits of text when there is different formatting, like highlights, bolding, or italics. It actually creates separate text boxes. So you will have to do some formatting if you want to edit the slides further. Otherwise, they typically look pretty sharp.
Time: 10-12 minutes (including review and minor tweaks)
First Take of a Presentation in the Manus Slides Authoring Tool
Claude — Refine Language and Add Speaker Notes
Now you have designed slides with your content. Time to make them sharp.
Claude excels at:
Catching awkward transitions
Simplifying dense slides
Finding tonal inconsistencies
Writing natural-sounding speaker notes
(Note: ChatGPT can also do this—I prefer Claude for tone and pacing, but use what works for you.)
The Refinement Prompt:
I'm attaching my slide deck. Please:
1. Review each slide and flag anywhere the message is unclear or too dense
2. Suggest improved transitions between sections (especially slides 3-4 and 6-7)
3. Rewrite any bullet points that are too long or jargon-heavy
4. Write brief speaker notes for each slide (2-3 sentences) with estimated talk time
5. Note if any slide tries to do too much
Keep the core messages intact—make the delivery more straightforward.
**What you'll get:**
- Cleaner, tighter language
- Smooth narrative flow
- Speaker notes that sound like *you* talking
- Time estimates so you don't overrun
**Advanced move:** Ask Claude to generate three versions of your closing slide—urgent, collaborative, and confident. Pick the one that matches your audience.
**Time: 25-30 minutes** (including implementing suggested changes)When This System Works Best
Internal strategy updates — Fast turnaround, clear messaging
Board presentations — High stakes, needs to look polished
Sales pitches — Consistent branding, repeatable structure
Quarterly reviews — Data-heavy, needs a clear story
When You Should Skip This System
High-design pitch decks (fundraising) - Hire a designer
Conference keynotes — Needs custom visuals and animations
Brand launches — Visual identity is the whole point
Highly technical deep-dives — Specialized diagrams may require manual work
Rule of thumb: If the design itself is the message, don't automate it. If the design should support the message, use this system. Though you may want to create a draft that a designer can take to the next level.
The AI Presentation Mistakes I See People Make
Treating AI like a magic button, "Make me a presentation about X" produces garbage. You need to describe the story first.
Using only one tool, ChatGPT alone → ugly slides, Manus alone → weak narrative, Claude alone → less automation
Not using templates in Manus, your slides will look like everyone else's AI deck. Upload your own design.
Skipping speaker notes, you'll forget half your points. Always add notes, even if you think you know the material.
Over-automating, Final polish is still human. Make it yours. Review every slide. Fix awkward phrasing. Look for weird images (Though I usually use them as “easter eggs” to demonstrate why you need to look closely. Make it yours.
Buffer: If you need more refinement, add 30 minutes. Still faster than the old way.
My Secret Sauce: The Review Protocol
Here’s where I get the most value out of the whole process. Once I have my slides done, I export them in PDF (this simply keeps the size of the document lower; you can even make it smaller with Adobe Acrobat or a site like Shrink PDF to save your context window usage.
Then I upload the presentation and ask Claude to review the slides and give them a rating between 1 and 100. This gives me a good benchmark for the quality of the slides. I ask for feedback to make the slides a 90/100. Now, remember this is a general heuristic, not a totally objective review. You could go as far as providing criteria for what constitutes a good presentation (Which I do for things like my newsletter posts). Then I iterate until I get the result I want. I also for keynotes and very important presentations, I use ChatGPT and Gemini to get additional “perspectives”. But I’d say that it still requires a good bit of human-in-the-loop editing.
Claude Executing a Quality Assessment of a Presentation
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AI for GTM is a one-day working session built for marketing, revenue, and operations professionals who need results, not rhetoric. On Wednesday, Dec 3, in Durham, NC, you’ll learn from real operators: Greg Boone (Walk West), Marc Sirkin (ex-Third Door Media), and Mark Hinkle (Peripety Labs / All Things AI) as they show how to wire AI into your go-to-market motion for pipeline, conversion, retention, and efficiency.
Bring your laptop. Leave with outcomes.
Date: Wednesday, December 3, 2025
Time: 9:00 A.M. – 5:00 P.M.
Location: Durham Armory, Durham, North Carolina
Price: $199 (Also, for the first 25 tickets, we’re offering a 50% discount, so use this link or the code: 50OFFRTP.)
AI Presentations, Efficiency, and Improved Quality
Here's what most people miss: This isn't about saving 4.5 hours per presentation. It's about what happens when your entire leadership team can articulate strategy as fast as they can think it.
The companies winning with AI aren't the ones with the biggest models or the fanciest tools. They're the ones who've figured out how to eliminate the friction between insight and action. When your VP of Sales can build a custom pitch deck in 90 minutes instead of waiting three days for marketing, deals move faster. When your product team can visualize roadmap changes in real-time during strategy sessions, decisions get made instead of deferred.
This presentation workflow is a microcosm of a larger truth: AI doesn't replace human judgment—it amplifies human leverage. The thinking is still yours. The strategy is still yours. But now you can express it at the speed of business, not the speed of PowerPoint.
Your Next 90 Minutes
Block out time tomorrow morning. Pick a presentation you've been dreading or delaying. Run it through this system:
25 minutes with ChatGPT to nail your story
12 minutes with Manus to make it visual
30 minutes with Claude to make it sharp
23 minutes for coffee and final polish
By lunch, you'll have something your old process couldn't deliver in a day. More importantly, you'll have proven to yourself that the gap between "I should present this" and "here's my deck" just collapsed from days to hours.
The executives who master this workflow won't just save time—they'll move at a fundamentally different velocity than their competitors. In a world where every company is becoming an AI company, the question isn't whether you'll adopt these tools. It's whether you'll do it before your competition does.
Start your timer. The next 90 minutes might be the best investment you make this quarter.
I appreciate your support.
Your AI Sherpa,
Mark R. Hinkle
Publisher, The AIE Network
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