Can Claude Make Better Slides than McKinsey?

A couple years ago, I took some slides from Mackenzie, Bane, and BCG and basically just rebuilt them to see if I could make them better. I recorded the process, uploaded on YouTube, and a lot of people watched it. But now in 2026,

the world looks a lot different. There's

a lot of AI tools out there that can build slides for you, and some of them are getting really good. A few weeks ago, Anthropic released a PowerPoint addin that has completely changed everything. So, I wanted to see, can

everything. So, I wanted to see, can this new tool rebuild these slides better than I did, and what else can it do? So, I ran it through a series of

do? So, I ran it through a series of tests from basic things like building or editing a slide to more advanced things like generating a template or building a whole presentation. I'll show you the

whole presentation. I'll show you the results of all these tests and I'll show you some really helpful tips that I learned along the way for how to actually use this tool effectively. Also

talk about what this means for you, for me, and for everybody else.

Now, there's been a lot of progress with AI presentation makers. Tools like

beautiful.ai and Gamma are completely changing the game, and it's really impressive. But there's a fundamental

impressive. But there's a fundamental problem.

Okay. Now, these presentation tools have been able to make a ton of progress even just in the last 2 or 3 years. But this

first 90% is not really the problem.

It's this last 10% that's a problem. And

the difference between here and perfect is some really important things like edits and tweaks and formatting. All

things that really matter in a corporate environment. You might also add other

environment. You might also add other important things here like security and privacy. But now with Claude in

privacy. But now with Claude in PowerPoint, we're really starting to make some progress on this last mile.

And these tools are starting to chip away at this last 10%. And it's really impressive. So I wanted to see how close

impressive. So I wanted to see how close are we getting. So, the first test I ran was to create a slide from scratch.

First thing I noticed was that it took forever. I started just with a blank

forever. I started just with a blank presentation, and it did create one that wasn't that bad, but it just looked sort of AI. But I noticed when I used an

of AI. But I noticed when I used an existing template, it did a lot better.

It was able to stick to the themes and colors, and overall, the formatting was quite a bit better. But even within the template, the results were even better if you asked it to use an existing layout. And this makes sense based on

layout. And this makes sense based on how this tool is described. It says that it provides template aare assistance.

And this is kind of the big unlock with this tool. But overall, I'm pretty

this tool. But overall, I'm pretty impressed. It found the right data, put

impressed. It found the right data, put it in, and this is very much a corporate style slide. Now, obviously, you can

style slide. Now, obviously, you can improve this output with a better prompt and even using some of the skills that are built in, but as just a first pass sort of basic test, it did a pretty good job. Now, the second thing I wanted to

job. Now, the second thing I wanted to test was how well it could edit a slide, especially when I give it specific direction. So, on that EU slide, for

direction. So, on that EU slide, for example, I wanted to fix some of the formatting mistakes. Haido was just a

formatting mistakes. Haido was just a little bit off, and I wanted to add data labels. And here it struggled just a

labels. And here it struggled just a little bit. It was able to do those

little bit. It was able to do those things, but it didn't quite do them exactly how I wanted. Another thing I wanted to test is if it could change the layout and asked it to move it to two columns. And this seems like not that

columns. And this seems like not that big of a deal, but this is actually really impressive. Basically, what's

really impressive. Basically, what's happening here is they're actually getting into the underlying layer of these PowerPoint slides, which previously has not worked very well.

Now, there's some tools that can do it kind of here and there, but I was very impressed. My tip for this one, if

impressed. My tip for this one, if you're going to edit a slide, is either ask it to duplicate the slide for you or just duplicate it yourself first. That

way, when you're editing a new slide, you don't lose the original version.

Plus, you can also compare the two and see which one you like better. So, since

this tends to work a lot better when you work inside a template, I wondered, could it just create a template for me?

So, that was test number three. I asked

it to create a McKenzie style template from scratch, all the slides. And again,

this took forever. I had to find ways to kill time. Of course, you could

kill time. Of course, you could multitask, but I thought this was going to be a lot quicker. But eventually

created a template. And while I'm impressed with the capability, it's not there yet. Actually, when you look at

there yet. Actually, when you look at some of the other AI tools, this is the part they actually do really well. I

suspect that they're probably using some underlying template already, or maybe they're selecting from a collection of templates. Maybe that's why they can do

templates. Maybe that's why they can do that so good, versus this is actually creating it from scratch. But still,

this is not an area where Claude excels.

They did get a few things right. So,

they actually got the font pretty good and the colors pretty good. I guess that probably wouldn't be that hard, but the actual layouts and the overall design and look and feel and even the number of slides completely off. So, not quite

there with this one. By the way, this video is not sponsored, but every template you see used in this video is from Slidstart. And the templates we

from Slidstart. And the templates we have on there are professionally designed and they work for situations exactly like this because Claude and whatever AI tool you're using understands how this is structured.

Without getting into the technical details, there's a lot of different ways to build a template. And if you build it with the right underlying structure and layouts and slidem, then it tends to play nicely with tools like this. Also

looks good. So, if you're interested, make sure you check out slidestar.com.

So, the next test was to see if I could create a whole presentation. And the

results again are pretty good, but not great. So, as with any prompt, the more

great. So, as with any prompt, the more detail you add, the better. But for the sake of this test, I kept it pretty simple. Just as a side note, one feature

simple. Just as a side note, one feature that I found really helpful was the skills feature. They have a lot of

skills feature. They have a lot of established skills that I actually thought worked pretty well. And

obviously, a lot more are going to get added over time. So, as you're using this, that's definitely something to check out. And again, here with the full

check out. And again, here with the full presentation, the content seemed pretty good, and the formatting actually wasn't bad either. For the most part, they

bad either. For the most part, they stuck to the template, and the overall look and feel is good. But I did notice random formatting mistakes. Different

size titles, weird placements, things like that. Also, in some cases, the

like that. Also, in some cases, the layouts they chose was a little bit strange to me. This feels like this doesn't actually fit on this slide. But

overall, still pretty impressed. One

thing that was really impressive is right here where they chose this road map layout for this timeline content.

Now, this is a slide that was already in the template. So, they were able to

the template. So, they were able to intelligently choose this slide and then populate it with content, and that's what you want. I don't know for sure, but I would imagine if they tried to build a slide like this, it wouldn't have looked quite as good. They were

able to create a couple charts here, but they weren't quite up to par. I also

thought there was a lot of visual elements that were missing. So, I did have some follow-up prompts to try and bring the content to life a little bit more, and it did add icons, but again, the placement was a little bit off. So,

my overall takeaway from this test is not that the capability is missing. You

just have to go through a few times. You

have to prompt and reprompt, and eventually you'll get there, or at least closer, but it just takes a little bit of work and time. But the good thing about this tool specifically is you can now take this and edit it as if it was

your own. Other tools are getting there,

your own. Other tools are getting there, but this is the best integration with PowerPoint that I've seen so far, including Microsoft's current integration. Another thing I tried to do

integration. Another thing I tried to do here, by the way, is to take one of our slide checklist that we offer with our courses and upload it into the database to see if it could use that checklist to improve the presentation. And I thought

for sure this would make a big difference, but I think it just kind of got confused. Now, the final test here

got confused. Now, the final test here was to see if it could rebuild the slide. Basically, could I give this a

slide. Basically, could I give this a slide like I was giving a slide to an expert and have them rebuild it? So, I

took the BCG slide that I edited originally, and there's sort of two parts to this. One of them is the technical capabilities. The other one is

technical capabilities. The other one is a knowledge of what a good slide looks like. Now, I won't go into all the

like. Now, I won't go into all the details here, but basically the problem with this slide is that they chose a strange chart. They're trying to show a

strange chart. They're trying to show a correlation between two variables, and this is kind of a strange chart to show it in because there's no natural order to this data. So, this line going up is a little bit misleading. Plus, you're

trying to see the relationship between this column chart on the bottom and the line chart on the top. You're trying to judge the gap between this line and these columns. Not a very efficient way

these columns. Not a very efficient way to communicate a message. So, I asked it to improve the slide for clarity, accuracy, and just overall visual appeal. And honestly, it didn't do a

appeal. And honestly, it didn't do a good job on the first pass. First of

all, it took 15 minutes, but second, there was some overlapping lines and things. And also, the data labels were a

things. And also, the data labels were a little bit off, but I didn't give up. I

kept reprompting it to see if it could get better. And here's the important

get better. And here's the important part. I asked the question, is this the

part. I asked the question, is this the best chart to show this message? and it

figured it out that it should go in a scatter plot because that's the kind of chart you want to use to compare two variables against each other and see relationships. And I was very impressed

relationships. And I was very impressed with this part. Sure, some of the formatting was still a little bit off, but overall was pretty good. Compare

this with the slide that I built 2 years ago. Now, I did not show it this slide

ago. Now, I did not show it this slide at all. I I'm not even using the same

at all. I I'm not even using the same computer, but look how close it got.

Now, overall takeaway is of course it's not there yet, but being able to do this natively in PowerPoint without completely messing everything up is pretty impressive. Now, do I think this

pretty impressive. Now, do I think this will eventually be able to completely replace anyone who builds slides? Yeah,

I do think it will eventually get there.

But the last 10% is going to take just as long as the first 90%. Cuz this is a really hard problem to solve. So, the

best thing you can do is just stay up to date on the technology and figure out how to leverage the tools to their maximum capability. Use a good template.

maximum capability. Use a good template.

Ask it to use the layouts, have follow-up prompts, and be patient. You

can make some pretty good slides, and it's only going to get better. Here's a

list of the videos that I'm thinking about working on next. Which one of these sounds the most interesting to you? Let me know down in the comments.

you? Let me know down in the comments.

Also, if you're a follower of this channel, you might have noticed I'm in a new space. Planning to film a lot more

new space. Planning to film a lot more content in here. So, make sure you stick around.