Do AI Presentation Tools Replace Designers? I Put 4 to the Test
Exploring how AI is reshaping the way we think, build, and create — one idea at a time
Presentation tools keep cycling through moments of reinvention, but 2025 has been unusually loud. Gamma rolled out new templates and brand kits. Tome disappeared entirely after raising millions. Pitch AI quietly added automation that feels more like a studio assistant than software. And Matik keeps leaning deeper into data-driven storytelling. Everywhere you look: Product Hunt threads, indie hacker forums, X debates, the conversation has circled back to a single question: Can these tools actually replace designers, or are they just making it easier for the rest of us to pretend we are one?
I spent the past week testing four of the names that show up in every conversation: Gamma, Tome (before its shutdown), Pitch AI, and Matik. What stood out wasn’t just the differences in what they produce, but the difference in what they claim to solve. Some tools promise creativity. Some promise speed. Some promise “studio-quality” decks. And then there are the ones that don’t promise anything except automation, which might be the most honest pitch of all.
What Everyone Seems to Be Loving
Across forums and feedback threads, the praise is remarkably consistent. Gamma feels like the most complete package, generating structured decks with surprisingly clean layouts and solid color discipline. The new brand-kit update helps it move beyond “AI template flavor” into something teams can actually use without embarrassment. People also like how it lets them stay inside one tool instead of bouncing between design apps, exporters, and editors just to make a deck look presentable.
Pitch AI has become the unexpected favorite for teams dealing with recurring reports, sprint updates, or weekly investor briefs. The automation quietly handles repetitive slides, formatting, and chart updates, which is the kind of drudgery designers aren’t meant to handle anyway. And then there’s Matik, less of a slide generator and more of a “tell me the story my data wants to tell” assistant. Early adopters praise the way it slots into BI tools and CRMs, turning raw datasets into slide-ready insights that don’t need manual formatting.
Even Tome, despite its collapse, still gets nostalgic praise for its storytelling engine. For a brief moment, users genuinely felt like they were co-writing decks with an AI that understood narrative pacing.
Where These Tools Still Fall Short
Despite all the excitement, it doesn’t take long to find the cracks. The biggest complaint across Reddit is sameness, the slow creep of “Gamma aesthetic” or “Pitch AI minimalism” into every market-facing deck. Templates help amateurs make better slides, but they also make everything look like it was built by the same person in the same room, using the same mood board.
Another limitation is brand depth. These tools can match colors and typography, but they don’t fully understand brand identity. They don’t understand personality, narrative tone, or the subtle visual choices that separate a premium brand from a passable one. Designers think in gestures, not grids, and AI hasn’t reached that instinctive layer yet.
Exporting remains a persistent headache. AI-generated formatting tends to fall apart when pushed into PowerPoint or Google Slides, which is where most teams actually collaborate. And while AI can generate content quickly, it still misses nuance, audience context, and the kind of storytelling judgment that determines whether your deck gets skimmed or taken seriously.
In other words, these tools replace the heavy lifting, but not the taste.
My Perspective: The Designer Isn’t Disappearing, the Workflow Is
After testing all four tools, here’s what becomes obvious. Designers aren’t being replaced; deck-making culture is being rewritten. AI tools remove the parts of the job designers never signed up for: aligning text boxes, formatting charts, resizing images, creating alternate slide versions, or rebuilding the same template for the fiftieth time. That isn’t creativity. That’s upkeep.
The real shift is happening beneath the surface. These tools let founders, teachers, operators, and non-designers build decent decks without shame. They democratize presentability. They make fast drafts feel less chaotic. They speed up the journey from idea to articulation. And they free designers to focus on the parts of the craft that require taste, intuition, and storytelling, the things AI still fumbles with.
So do AI presentation tools replace designers? Only if your version of “design” is just putting shapes in the right place. But if design is the art of direction, interpretation, and narrative clarity, we’re nowhere close. What we’re seeing instead is something more exciting: AI helping everyone raise the floor while humans continue raising the ceiling. That, to me, feels like a step forward worth paying attention to.
AI Toolkit: Tools That Elevate Your Workflow
Jobesta helps job seekers move faster by pairing AI-matched roles with auto-generated CVs, ATS-ready cover letters, and a built-in application tracker that keeps every opportunity organized in one place.
EVE scans your inbox like a revenue-obsessed assistant, pulling out leads, crafting personalized replies in your voice, and surfacing stalled conversations before they slip away.
OnSpace AI lets anyone build mobile or web apps just by talking to an AI, complete with logins, payments, databases, and next-gen models baked in.
Raccoon AI works like a full digital team in one agent, capable of building apps, writing research-backed presentations, cleaning spreadsheets, designing assets, and running multi-step workflows across your tools.
Surmado Scout delivers rapid, persona-driven marketing intelligence with SEO audits, AI visibility checks, and strategic recommendations.
Prompt of the Day: Your Presentation Polisher
Prompt:
Use AI to refine your deck’s clarity before you present it.
Analyze this presentation and identify confusing sections, weak transitions, or missing context.
Suggest improved slide order and explain why your structure is stronger.
Rewrite slide titles to be more action-driven and audience-focused.
Identify any slides that appear redundant and recommend whether they should be merged or removed.
Improve the narrative tone to match a pitch, proposal, or executive briefing.
Paste your deck text or outline below.
A sharp and well-balanced analysis Sir, especially your point that AI is reshaping presentation workflows rather than replacing true design expertise. This perspective clarifies the real value these tools bring to modern teams