These prompts work in ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini because they rely on the one thing every tool is good at: structure. Copy them as written, then adjust once you have felt how they behave.
It is Sunday evening, the presentation is Tuesday, and what you have is not a presentation. It is a page of bullets, two half-thoughts from the shower, a screenshot of someone else's slide, and a strong sense of what you mean that has not yet agreed to become words. The gap between that pile and a deck is the reason it is still Sunday evening and you are still looking at it.
ChatGPT closes that gap in three prompts. Not by designing slides, it is mediocre at that, but by doing the thing that actually takes the time: finding the argument in the mess and giving it a shape.
Do not ask it to "make a presentation". Ask it to think in three steps. First it finds the argument in your notes and asks what is missing. Then it builds a slide-by-slide skeleton, one message per slide, headlines that state the point. Then it writes speaker notes in a spoken register. You paste the result into your slide tool, and the two hours of staring becomes twenty minutes of assembling.
Prompt 1: find the argument
Paste your notes, however rough, then add the prompt below.
"Here are my raw notes for a presentation. Before writing anything, tell me: the single argument these notes are making, who the audience seems to be, and what is missing or contradictory. Then ask me up to three questions that would most improve the deck."
This is the step everyone skips and the one that saves the evening. Bullet soup usually contains an argument nobody has stated yet, and this prompt drags it into the open before any slide exists. Answer its questions properly. Thirty seconds each is enough; they are doing the thinking you would otherwise do at 11pm.
Prompt 2: build the skeleton
Once the argument is clear, ask for the skeleton.
"Build a slide-by-slide outline for a ten-minute presentation to this audience. One message per slide. Each headline must state the point, not name a topic, so 'Costs fall 20% by March' rather than 'Cost update'. Two or three supporting bullets per slide, and flag any slide where my notes are too thin to back it up."
The headline rule is the whole trick. A deck of topic headings, "Background", "Next steps", makes the audience do the work. A deck of point headlines makes the argument readable from the slide titles alone, which is what senior rooms actually do. They read the titles and decide whether to listen, and the flag at the end shows you where you are asserting something you cannot yet support. Better to find that on Sunday than in the meeting.
Prompt 3: the words you will say
"Write short speaker notes for each slide in a natural spoken register, as one person talking, not reading. Then tighten every headline so it could stand alone without the bullets."
Notes written to be spoken save you from the fate of reading your own slides aloud to a room that can also read. If the deck really matters, this is also the natural handoff point. Claude tends to write the more natural spoken line, so structure in ChatGPT, then hand the skeleton to Claude for the words. The split is covered in more detail in Claude vs ChatGPT for writing. For a routine Tuesday deck, one tool is fine.
Then you take over
Paste the outline into PowerPoint, Slides or whatever the company insists on, and do the human part. Before it goes anywhere, run two checks:
- Verify every fact. Every number, name and claim on a slide gets checked against the source, using the method in how to fact-check AI output, since slides get screenshotted and forwarded without context, so a wrong figure travels further than most mistakes.
- Check the confidence. The tool will have stated everything with equal certainty whether it knew it or not.
Then read the whole thing once as the audience. The tool found the structure, but whether the argument survives contact with that particular room is a judgement only you have.
That is the honest shape of it. The tool does the two hours of structural thinking, you do the twenty minutes of taste and truth, and Sunday evening gets some of itself back.
Prompt roundup
If you want the three prompts in one place, copy them here.
| Step | What it does | Prompt to paste |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Find the argument | Extracts the point from your notes, identifies the audience, and asks what is missing. | "Here are my raw notes for a presentation. Before writing anything, tell me: the single argument these notes are making, who the audience seems to be, and what is missing or contradictory. Then ask me up to three questions that would most improve the deck." |
| 2. Build the skeleton | Creates a slide-by-slide outline with one point headline per slide and flags thin evidence. | "Build a slide-by-slide outline for a ten-minute presentation to this audience. One message per slide. Each headline must state the point, not name a topic, so 'Costs fall 20% by March' rather than 'Cost update'. Two or three supporting bullets per slide, and flag any slide where my notes are too thin to back it up." |
| 3. Write the words | Produces spoken speaker notes and tightens headlines so they stand alone. | "Write short speaker notes for each slide in a natural spoken register, as one person talking, not reading. Then tighten every headline so it could stand alone without the bullets." |
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Clair helps non-technical professionals know when to trust their AI, when to check it, and when to skip it.