AI Can Make Slides. It Still Can’t Create Authenticity.

When communication became a competitive advantage, presentation design stopped being decoration.

Over the last few months, I’ve seen countless discussions about AI-generated presentations. 
New tools appear every week promising faster decks, better layouts, automatic storytelling and beautiful slides in minutes.

And honestly, some of them are impressive.

What I find interesting, though, is that the rise of AI didn’t make presentation design less relevant. In many ways, it revealed what presentation design was actually about all along.

And maybe that’s also why authenticity has become such an interesting topic lately.

The more accessible good design becomes, the more we value the things that are difficult to replicate: perspective, judgment and a genuine point of view. Because authenticity isn’t really about sounding different. It’s about communicating ideas in a way that feels connected with who you are, what you believe and how you see the world.

For years, presentations were treated as support materials. The strategy came first, decisions were already made and, somewhere near the end of the process, someone would be asked to “make the slides look better.”

Today, that mindset feels increasingly outdated. Not because presentations changed dramatically, but because communication itself became a competitive advantage.

Sales teams use presentations to win business, founders use them to raise investment, leadership teams use them to align people around a vision and product teams use them to drive decisions. When communication starts influencing business results, design stops being a finishing touch and becomes part of the strategy.

And that’s where I think many people misunderstand presentation design.

A good presentation was never just about making slides look attractive, design helps people understand and it creates hierarchy, directs attention and makes information easier to follow. It helps an audience know where to look, what matters and what can stay in the background. More importantly, it helps people follow your thinking instead of figuring it out on their own.

In other words, good design doesn’t decorate information. It organises it. The same is true for storytelling.

One of the things that made me think about this recently was a presentation we worked on at Pappum for a researcher and speaker in the AI field. He was preparing his deck for one of the largest AI-focused events in Brazil and still needed support with the presentation.

Which is kind of interesting when you think about it.

If anyone had access to the latest AI tools, it was him.

And yet, the conversation wasn’t about generating slides. It was about clarity and how he could organise his ideas, guide attention and make complex information feel understandable.

But there was another concern behind all of that: how to make the presentation sound like him. 
How to make years of research, experiences and opinions feel personal instead of generic.

The technology wasn’t the challenge. Communicating it authentically was.

That’s why I don’t think AI is replacing presentation design. The strategic thinking behind a presentation is still profoundly human. AI can help with layouts, suggest structures and speed up repetitive tasks, but it still can’t decide what is truly important to say, what perspective is worth defending or what makes a message feel uniquely yours.

And maybe that’s where authenticity lives. AI can make slides but it still can’t create authenticity.

Not in looking different just for the sake of it, but in communicating something that could only come from your experience, your company and your way of seeing the world. Before AI, bad presentations often looked bad. Today, bad presentations can look surprisingly good.

Beautiful slides are becoming easier and easier to create.

Authenticity isn’t.

And I have a feeling that’s exactly where the real value of presentation design will continue to be.