How to Use AI for Business Presentations (Without Losing Your Authenticity)?

While AI can certainly speed up the process of creating business presentations, it’s important to recognise its limitations. It’s not quite the same as working with a human designer or coach, and if you’re not careful, it could end up missing the personal touch that makes your presentation truly resonate with your audience.

So, how do you make sure that AI works for you, not against you? How can you use these tools effectively without losing authenticity in the process?

In this guide, we’ll show you how to strike the right balance between using AI and your own voice – drawing on our experience at Body Talk presenting or supporting clients in settings like board meetings, TED talks, and negotiations.

How is AI being used in presentations?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is being used for presentations in four main ways:

• Speech planning – Struggling to get your thoughts into a clear narrative? AI can help you write your script, generate speaker notes, and even adjust your tone.
• Research – AI can quickly process data or long documents to give you points for your presentations, as well as give you insights about your audience’s preferences and behaviours based on what it can find online. If you need to present on a complex topic, it can also help you to understand it and break it down in a way that’s easy to grasp for your audience.
• Slide design – Formatting and ensuring consistency across your slides can be tedious. AI-driven design tools, such as Beautiful.ai or Canva, can automate the process, ensuring your presentation looks polished and professional. These tools adjust fonts, align text, and even recommend images or colour schemes, making sure your slides look cohesive without you needing to spend time manually editing every detail.
• Practice – Features like PowerPoint’s ‘Rehearse with Coach’ let you practice your presentation and receive immediate feedback on your pace, pitch, and even the use of filler words.

Alongside presentations, AI is also making a big impact on everyday business communication. Interested in learning more? Read our blog on how AI communication is changing the way we connect.

The benefits of using AI in business presentations

If you’ve used AI before, you’ve probably felt some of these benefits.

Save time

One of the biggest advantages of AI-powered tools is the time they save. What would typically take hours – like designing a new presentation from scratch – can now be done in a matter of minutes.

Brainstorm ideas

Sometimes, it can be difficult to think of fresh ways to present information. AI is particularly useful here – it can help you brainstorm creative ways to visualise data, suggest metaphors or imagery, and even recommend innovative presentation styles.

Ensure consistency across your slides

Maintaining a consistent design throughout your presentation can be tricky, especially when working with different slide formats and content. AI makes this easy by applying a uniform design across your slides. From matching fonts to ensuring a consistent colour palette, AI tools can give your presentation a polished, professional appearance.

Visualise data

Presenting data in a way that’s both clear and engaging can be a challenge. AI tools can automatically pull key insights from your data, suggest the best way to visualise it, and create compelling charts or graphs. This means you don’t have to spend hours formatting – AI can do it for you, ensuring your data is not only easy to understand but also visually appealing.

Time management

It’s all too easy to run over time in a presentation, especially when you’re passionate about your topic. AI can help keep you on track by timing your presentation and providing alerts when it’s time to move on to the next slide or when you’re nearing the end. This ensures that you stay within your allotted time while still covering all your key points.

What are the risks of relying too heavily on AI for business presentations?

Let’s go through what you need to be aware of if you plan on using AI for a business presentation.

Sounding generic

AI is becoming increasingly recognisable, and while it can help you draft content quickly, it’s important to remember that it can also take away the personal touch that makes your presentation uniquely yours.

In a recent survey of 2,000 UK and US participants, Bynder tested two articles – one written by ChatGPT and the other by a trained copywriter. Both articles had the same brief: “Write 300 words on how to clean your car.” 50% of consumers could tell which one was AI-generated.

While it’s possible to edit AI-generated content to make it less generic, it’s important not to get too caught up in the ease of using AI and forget that it can easily sound like you weren’t the one to write it.

To stand out, always imbue your authentic voice into AI-driven content. People resonate with the unique energy and personality you bring to your presentation, not just polished text.

Missing emotion and authenticity

While AI can generate impressive content, it still falls short when it comes to capturing the human elements that make a presentation impactful – elements like storytelling, empathy, and emotional connection.

As we discuss in our blog on science of business storytelling, stories are powerful because they activate multiple areas of the brain. Listening to a story doesn’t just engage the auditory cortex, it also stimulates areas responsible for emotional reactions, sensory experiences, and memory formation.

Now, while AI can write a story – even an emotional one – it won’t tell it the way you would. You can provide the information, but it can’t connect with your audience’s emotions the way you can. If you rely too much on AI for storytelling, you miss the opportunity to personally engage with your audience.

Inaccurate information

AI tools are powerful at generating content, but they’re not perfect when it comes to fact-checking and accuracy.

Even if you instruct AI to only reference the information you provide, it can still misinterpret data, make assumptions, or even invent statistics that sound convincing. This is a real concern, especially when you’re presenting to a knowledgeable audience who may spot discrepancies or inaccuracies.

Always double-check any data or claims AI generates to ensure that everything is factually correct.

Distracting the audience

One thing to watch out for with AI is that it can sometimes overdo it – whether it’s with text, animations, or visuals. Many AI tools don’t get that less is more, and tend to add a bit too much.

For instance, it might fill your slides with a lot of text or too many bullet points, thinking it’s being helpful, but all that extra information can actually overwhelm your audience. It also tends to add animations or flashy transitions where they’re not needed.

Presentation becomes an afterthought

While AI can help design your slides, it doesn’t always take into consideration how you’ll present them.

This is why it’s really important to go in and make adjustments yourself. Think about how you want to guide your audience’s attention, and consider the flow of your presentation. As we go into in our blog on if you should let AI design your slides, you need to think carefully about how you’ll reveal each point and whether slides are even necessary at all. Sometimes, a single, powerful image might communicate your idea far more effectively than a slide crammed with text.

Take inspiration from TED Talks, where many speakers use minimal text. Some presentations are even entirely visual, with no text on slides at all. AI can help you get started, but it’s up to you to refine the presentation style and ensure the slides truly support your delivery.

A guide to using AI for business presentations

Now that we’ve been through AI’s benefits as well as its limitations, let’s discuss the best ways to use it in your presentations without losing your authenticity.

Planning your speech

AI can help you to write analyse what you’ve already written, offering suggestions on how to improve clarity or flow. It can even ask you questions to help you dig deeper into your content or ensure you’ve covered all bases.

However, while AI can be a great brainstorming partner, it’s important to stay in control of your core message. AI can sometimes end up being a bit too vague or suggest ideas that sound good but don’t align with what you really want to say. Know your core message and why it matters to your audience, and use AI to help refine and support that, rather than letting it dictate the direction of your presentation.

We recommend writing a first draft yourself, thinking about how you want to lead your audience through your message and the order they need to hear each point in before turning to AI.

Creating presentation slides

AI can be a great time-saver when it comes to generating slides quickly, but while they may look good, they don’t always follow the best practices for effective presentation design.

We talk about this in our blog on improving your PowerPoint presentation slides. Your slides should never be the main event. Think of them as your sidekick, the Robin to your Batman. They’re there to support you and highlight key points, not carry the whole story.

Keep this in mind as you design your slides, and remember that your voice and message should be the focus.

Aligning AI with your brand

While AI might help with ideas, structure, or even language, it’s up to you to ensure the final product matches your brand’s voice. Make sure the content feels authentic by adjusting it where necessary.

Add your own personal touch to make sure that the content really resonates with your audience, stays true to your brand, and maintains that important human connection.

Working on your presentation skills

While AI can provide useful feedback on things like pacing or tone, real-time coaching is where you really see the difference in your presentation skills. A coach can help you with specific challenges – whether it’s mindset, nerves, or adjusting your style to better connect with your audience.

If you’re feeling anxious before a presentation, we recommend reading our blog on calming your “monkey mind” and finding a sense of inner peace: 3 Ways to Soothe Your Monkey Mind. A calm mind makes for a much more confident delivery!

Tools and resources for AI-powered business presentations

Some of the most common AI tools used for business presentations are:

• Beautiful.ai: This tool makes it easy to create a professional presentation without needing to fiddle with formatting.
• Canva: Canva offers AI-powered features that suggest layouts, colours, and images.
• Generative AI like ChatGPT: You can use tools like ChatGPT to brainstorm ideas, create content, or even refine your presentation script.
• Microsoft AI PowerPoint Generator: PowerPoint’s AI features can assist in creating slides by suggesting text and visuals based on what you’re working on.

High-energy presentation skills training, delivered by specialists

Do you or your team struggle with giving presentations that drive action?

At Body Talk, we partner with professionals from diverse industries – like London Business School, Expedia, and Specsavers – to build the skills and confidence needed for impactful presentations.

Our presentation skills training is customised to address your unique challenges and the presentations you have coming up. You’ll learn to:

• Master the six key body language techniques that top speakers use to engage their audience.
• Develop your voice using techniques from actors and broadcasters, so that you can hold attention every time you speak.
• Write clear and persuasive messages with our GRID method, a proven system for storytelling.
• Handle any question with confidence, using our ECPC method to keep your cool under pressure.
• Learn psychology of influence, learning how the best brands and speakers persuade, and using those insights to make your presentations more compelling.

Our sessions are research-backed and focused on giving you real skills that you can start using right away. If you’re ready to take your presentations to the next level and speak with confidence, reach out to book a session today.

Frequently asked questions

We’ve gone through your most common questions on using AI for business presentations below.

Can AI match human creativity?

AI is capable of generating new ideas and offering helpful design suggestions or slide content, but it’s important to remember that AI works based on patterns and data already available. Each human’s creativity is deeply unique, affected by everything you’ve lived through, learned, and felt.

For instance, while AI can suggest layouts for a blank slide or even provide content ideas, it can’t replicate the personal touch and originality that comes from your own creative process. When creating your presentations, you can use AI to enhance your ideas, but remember that your creativity is what will make your slides stand out and truly connect with your audience.

Should I use an AI presentation maker?

AI presentation makers can be helpful tools, especially when you need to edit presentations quickly or find presentation templates to get started. They can help with PowerPoint presentations by suggesting layouts and slide text. However, it’s important to remember that AI-generated designs may not always capture your brand’s unique voice or the message you want to convey.

While AI can assist with the design process and offer custom visuals, it’s still vital to personalise and adjust the content to suit your needs. Consider using AI to help you to get started, but take time to edit yourself and ensure your voice comes through.

Does AI understand context?

You can certainly explain to AI the presentation context to help it generate content that aligns with your goals, but it’s unlikely to fully grasp the nuances in the same way you do.

As neuroscientist Veena D. Dwivedi explains, our brains (and thus our thoughts and mental processes) are never without emotional context. This means that while AI can help you prepare presentations, it doesn’t have the emotional intelligence or situational awareness to fully understand the impact of your message.

For example, AI can summarise key takeaways from your presentation, but you’ll still need to ensure that these are accurate and aligned with your actual intent. AI might miss the deeper context or emotional cues that make your message resonate with your audience, so it’s important to review and make those adjustments yourself.

What kind of presentations can you use AI for?

You can use AI for all kinds of presentation creation, whether it’s a sales presentation, a pitch deck, or a team update.