Building presentations is the most common request from clients we work with at Tandem. We all produce decks internally and externally. And what takes time isn't the substance: it's the layout.
Good news: for a few months now, AI can finally generate clean slides that respect your brand identity.
Back in February, I wrote a full edition on a method to streamline presentation generation:
- Deep Research to gather the source material
- A reasoning model to structure the message
- Gamma to generate the deck
Today, I won't revisit that. We focus on one specific point: producing clean slides, on-brand, without spending the day on it.
Where we stand on AI slide generation
You can ask Claude (Artifacts), Dust (frames) or ChatGPT for slides. The problem is that everything comes out as HTML: not importable into PowerPoint, not really editable, and above all no image generation: just diagrams.
Then Claude Design arrived and it changed the game. Slides are generated at much higher quality, still as HTML, but this time exportable to PowerPoint, to Canva, or back into Claude Code to refine. The gap with standard chat is obvious, as you'll see below.
The big shift: turn your brand guidelines into text
You're familiar with skills: a markdown file that gives the AI the context for a task, like an SOP. design.md follows the exact same logic, but for your visual identity. Colors, typography, spacing, logos: everything goes into a text file Claude reuses on every generation.
With a design.md, Claude can easily recreate your homepage, just without the images:
The point is obvious. You build it once, and every slide, every document keeps your brand DNA. No more re-explaining your brand on every prompt.
How to build your design.md in minutes
Claude asks you questions and inquires about what you can share: website, Figma file, brand PDF, screenshots, logos. Code and Figma give the best results, but a URL and a few screenshots are more than enough to get started.
Claude Design has a dedicated section to generate your design.md:
Claude then asks a series of questions to define your brand identity:
From there, Claude generates your system: palette, typography, components. You validate or request adjustments, block by block.
Design.md or skill? Same principle
design.md only works inside Claude Design, but you can also build a « brand guidelines » skill and invoke it in a regular conversation. At Tandem, we have a /tandem-brand skill: any time I ask for an on-brand deliverable, Claude reads the skill and applies the brand on its own.
And it's not just for slides. The same skill generates sales proposals in .docx or PDF, always on-brand. To build it, you share your site URL, screenshots, brand guide: and Claude assembles the skill for you (comparable to design.md but usable in chat or cowork mode).
In Claude Design, you can also attach skills on top of your design.md to steer generation. Some are ready-made: « Make a deck » for an HTML deck, « Export as PPTX » for an editable file, « Save as PDF ».
Example: a 20-slide deck
Here, a sales proposal, 20 on-brand slides. Editing happens directly inside Claude Design, in several ways:
- Adjust: tell Claude in natural language what to change.
- Modify: take direct control of background, font or text size.
- Comments: add comments on slides.
Here are the modes, separated by a yellow line:
Once you're happy, you export: editable PowerPoint, PDF, or standalone HTML. You can also push directly to Canva or to Claude Code to refine further.
Claude Design, Artifacts or Gamma?
Each solution has its trade-offs. A key question is whether you want to take control after generation.
- Artifacts in chat: fast, but HTML so barely editable and no images. Great for a quick diagram or mockup, not for a deck to share and refine.
- Claude Design: clean HTML, editable inside the tool, then exportable to editable PowerPoint (native text and shapes) or screenshots. The right balance when you want polish and control. No image generation but you can integrate uploaded images.
- Gamma (and slide-focused tools): this is where image generation and image handling shine. AI images, stock libraries, models like Nano Banana, fine layout control, PPTX or Google Slides export.
The real deciding factor usually comes down to one question: do you need generated images, or do diagrams suffice? Watch out for cost on Gamma though: a 10-image deck ranges from €0.13 with a cheap model to a few euros with a premium one.
Limits of AI slide generation
Depending on the standard you expect for slides, a few limits to keep in mind:
- Typography. After export from Claude Design to PowerPoint, the layout holds well but font sizes tend to shrink. Plan for adjustments.
- Substance. As always with AI, you can get errors on figures, charts, claims. A polished deck creates a false sense of reliability.
Cowork, another option
If you want native PowerPoint, Cowork is worth a look. It's a hybrid between Claude chat (fast HTML, not editable) and Claude Design (longer PPTX flow, editable).
You skip the HTML step: Cowork generates the .pptx file directly on your machine. It reads your context, relies on the brand skill, and builds the native presentation.
It's noticeably faster to generate, but the result is less polished than Claude Design or Gamma. Best for working decks where speed beats aesthetics.
Bottom line
There isn't a single tool that wins everywhere yet. But you can already go very far on slide generation, with monthly improvements. You can also combine solutions.
To choose, a few questions to ask yourself:
- Do you need to edit afterwards?
- Do you need generated images?
- Is it a one-off or recurring?
Either way, you can respect your brand in generation: that's no longer a blocker. Build your design.md or brand skill once and for all: 15 minutes of setup that saves time on every following presentation.
Personally, for an on-brand deliverable others will retouch, Claude Design is my reflex. For image-rich decks, Gamma. To move fast on native, Cowork.
