Using Claude To Produce Outstanding PowerPoint Presentations

Learners will receive access to Claude for the session exercises.

Every presentation starts somewhere: rough notes, a dense document, a last-minute request. Getting from that raw material to a clear, focused deck under time pressure is where Claude can make a real difference, but only if you know where it adds value, where it falls short, and how to stay in control of the final product.

This hands-on workshop provides a focused, practical approach to using Claude alongside PowerPoint to improve clarity, consistency, and engagement while maintaining accuracy, accountability, and presenter control. Participants practice writing structured prompts for common slide tasks and apply Claude to transform rough inputs, including notes, documents, and emails, into structured slide narratives aligned to audience needs and time constraints.

The workshop emphasizes practical slide construction, including improving slide text, refining tone, exploring layout and visual hierarchy, and preparing speaker notes that support effective delivery. 
The session also addresses trust, risk, and quality considerations when using Claude for presentations. Participants practice reviewing Claude-generated content for accuracy, relevance, tone, and unsupported claims, and apply accessibility and quality checks to help ensure presentations are clear, inclusive, and appropriate for sharing.

Participants will have the opportunity to leave with a repeatable workflow for integrating Claude into PowerPoint presentation development, along with practical experience identifying where Claude adds value, where human judgment is essential, and how to apply simple guardrails for responsible use in everyday presentation work.

AI Tools Used in This Workshop: This workshop uses Claude.ai, but also covers how Claude, through the Stanford AI Playground, Stanford Health Care, and the School of Medicine, SecureGPT for presentation planning and drafting.

During the workshop, participants explore how Claude handles a range of presentation tasks, including outlining, rewriting, summarizing, tone control, and speaker notes, and experiment with different prompting approaches to identify what works best for different slide challenges.

Learners will have the opportunity to:

1. Explore how Claude supports presentation planning, drafting, and refinement
2. Write structured prompts to generate slide outlines, rewrites, summaries, and speaker notes
3. Practice using Claude to convert raw content into clear, audience-focused slide narratives
4. Review Claude-generated slide content for accuracy, tone, relevance, and risk
5. Apply accessibility and quality checks to presentation materials
6. Explore basic guardrails for the responsible use of Claude in presentation workflows

1. Claude and AI Foundations for Presentation Work

• What Claude is and is not in presentation contexts
• How Claude supports drafting, rewriting, and summarizing slide content
• Why Claude can produce confident but incorrect or incomplete slide material
• Safe use fundamentals: accuracy, sensitivity, and content ownership

2. Prompting Claude for PowerPoint Tasks

• Prompt structure for presentations: audience, goal, time constraints, tone, output format
• Prompting patterns for slide outlines, agendas, and executive summaries
• Using constraints to control slide length, wording, and structure
• Iterating and refining prompts to improve clarity, relevance, and specificity
• Reducing generic or over-polished output from Claude

3. Storyline and Slide Structure

• Turning notes, documents, and emails into a coherent slide narrative with Claude
• Common presentation story patterns for updates, decisions, and instruction
• Claude-assisted slide mapping and content prioritization
• Reducing slide count and content density without losing meaning
• Aligning slide flow to audience needs and decision context

4. Slide Text, Visuals, and Layout Refinement

• Writing effective slide text with Claude: headlines, bullets, and parallel structure
• Tone control for different presentation contexts
• Using Claude and PowerPoint design suggestions to explore layouts and visual hierarchy
• Identifying when visuals clarify versus distract
• Improving consistency, readability, and slide flow

5. Speaker Support and Delivery Preparation

• Generating speaker notes and talk tracks with Claude
• Creating short and long versions of the same deck
• Summarizing a deck for leadership or distribution

6. Quality, Trust, and Accessibility Checks

• Common risks when using Claude for presentations: fabricated facts, vague claims, missing assumptions
• Reviewing Claude-generated slides for accuracy, relevance, and tone
• Running accessibility checks and applying practical fixes
• Exploring a repeatable, defensible Claude-assisted presentation workflow