Ep 647: The New Secret Google Gemini Feature that Quietly Kills Powerpoint slides

This is the Everyday AI show. The

everyday podcast where we simplify AI

and bring its power to your fingertips.

Listen daily for practical advice to

boost your career, business, and

everyday life.

One of the most important elements of

winning back time with generative AI is

not going out of your way. You need to

match the best AI tool or mode with the

work that you're already needing to do.

And let's be honest, presentations are

still one of those things that we're

spending so much time on. And there's

great AI tools to make slides, but they

also have their limitations. Like Gamma

is great, but I find it to be

unpredictable at times, especially with

buggy PDF and PowerPoint exports. And

Microsoft Copilot obviously has some

great AI features inside of PowerPoint,

but so few people actually have access

to most of Copilot's features because of

data privacy and security. So, will a

new AI slide champion enter? Well,

Google Gemini, it might be you. Uh

because there's a new secret Google

Gemini feature that might quietly kill

PowerPoint slides, but it's technically

in Gemini, but you got to technically be

in Canvas mode and you technically have

to use the right words. But don't worry,

I'm going to tell you exactly what you

need to know. It's going to be a fast

one and we're going to put AI to work

for us on this Wednesday. What's going

on y'all? Welcome to Everyday AI. My

name is Jordan Wilson and this is your

daily live stream podcast and free daily

newsletter. Helping everyday business

leaders like you and me, not just keep

up with AI, but how we can make sense of

all these changes and advancements. Use

them to get ahead to grow our companies

and our careers. That's what you're

trying to do. Starts here with the

unedited, unscripted live stream

podcast. But to take it to the next

level, if you want to be the smartest

person in AI at your company, go to our

website, your everydayai.com.

there. We obviously break down the

highlights from each and every uh

podcast episode of that day, but also we

keep you up to date with all of the

other latest AI news that you need to

know.

Let's get into it. I'm not going to make

you wait any longer. There's three words

that you're going to need. Create a

presentation. All right? But there's a

lot more that you need to know. So, uh,

I'm going to show you how, uh, to use

this new feature inside of Google

Gemini, and at the end, I'm going to

give you three tips on how to best use

it. But on today's show, we're going to

learn how and why to use Gemini Canvas

for all types of presentations. We're

going to under we're going to uncover

and explore that threeword phrase,

create a presentation that can kill off

maybe some of your PowerPoint designing.

and we're going to learn the pros and

the cons of using the new slides feature

in Gemini Canvas. That's kind of hidden

but extremely powerful.

Let's get into it. Let's learn live

stream audience. Love to see you. Good

to see you. Uh thanks for joining. Uh

Bronson, thanks for joining on uh

YouTube. Rolando, Jay, Juliet, everyone

else. Good to see you. Robert, um let's

let's get straight into it. Uh this is

going to be one of those ones, not

necessarily a visual show, but uh if you

do want to follow along, uh make sure to

go to our website, your everyday.com.

All right. Uh so we always have the

video version there. Live stream

audience, do me a favor. I'm going to be

jumping around a little bit um on our uh

live stream here. So, if you could let

me know if you see my screen. All right.

Uh before we get started. So, here's

what we're going to do. I'm going to

give you a primer on how canvas mode in

Google Gemini works. And that's where

you are going to use that threeword

phrase create a presentation. Yeah,

there is no uh toggle or button that you

click, which can be a good thing. Maybe

it's a bad thing at first, but if you

want to take advantage of this amazing

feature, that's how you do it. All

right, so here's exactly what we're

going to do. And I'm going to do this

live. On Wednesdays, we do uh this thing

called putting AI to work. On

Wednesdays, uh we do a usually live demo

of a newer uh AI feature uh usually from

one of the big four players, right?

Microsoft Copilot, Enthropic, Claude, uh

Google Gemini or Chad GBT. So, you know,

kind of demoing new features and this is

one honestly this is worthy of a

keynote, but Google literally not even

on their main Twitter account, on their

Google Gemini app account, they put out

one tweet and that is it. And this is

one of those small little features that

I think everyone needs to be using. All

right. Um All right. Hopefully hopefully

there's a delay. I didn't see anyone say

that they see my screen, but uh I'm just

going to hope and assume that y'all can.

So, here's what I have. I have

yesterday's podcast episode. All right.

It went a little long. So, today's

episode, we're going to be a little

short. It's going to be a short and

sweet one today. So, this was how can a

former nonprofit losing 12 billion a

quarter go public at $1 trillion. So,

this was a story uh about kind of our

hottake Tuesday episode about OpenAI.

So, on our website, if you didn't know,

you can always go listen to the um the

podcast episode on our website. You can

also watch the video. All right? And

then we uh break down some of the

topics, have a little write up, and then

an entire transcript of the actual

episode. So, I'm going to just copy and

paste this entire thing. Okay. Now, I am

inside Google Gemini. All right. Thank

you, Joe, Marie, and Jay for letting me

know. You can see the screen. So, in

Google Gemini, uh you're going to click

the new or not the new uh there. It is

an updated layout, but this is not a uh

new button. So, you're going to click on

tools and then go to canvas mode. So, um

I'm going to just make this very easy.

All right. I'm going to just say create

using canvas,

highlight the main points of this

podcast and create a presentation. All

right. And then I'm going to copy and

paste it. So, that's all I'm saying. I'm

saying using canvas um highlight the

main points of this podcast.

Love typing live and our three-word

phrase create a presentation. All right.

I've tried uh other combination of

words. Some work, some don't. You know,

uh you know, create a Google Slides

file, create a uh slideshow. Sometimes

it works, sometimes it doesn't because

canvas mode and I'll explore it uh just

a little bit with you all here. It can

actually create a lot of different

things. So, uh I'm letting this cook

right now. It should just take two

minutes. But that's literally all I did.

I just said using canvas, highlight the

main points of this podcast and create a

presentation. And then I pasted the

entire content of the podcast um that's

on our episode page. That's it. All

right. So, our live stream audience is

going to see this happening live. If

you're on the podcast, I will walk you

through uh what's happening. But, uh

it's creating it now. Okay. So, I can

see it kind of building uh the slides.

It split my screen. On the lefth hand

side, I can continue to chat uh with

Google Canvas mode. But on the right

side, you will see now it says creating

slides. And if you've listened to the

show at all, you you know, one of my

what I think is probably the most

underrated feature or mode out there is

Gemini canvas. Uh so yes, it has some

similarities with OpenAI's canvas mode

and some similarities with Claude's

artifacts mode. Uh the difference is I

think it is great at building

interactive websites visually. That's

what I use it for. Uh, I use canvas mode

all the time to put together just visual

presentations, right? But up until now,

you haven't been able to actually export

those as slides, right? And you'll see

now it's done. That was quick, right? We

can end the show at 8 minutes. We're not

uh because I'm also going to give you uh

three tips on how to best use this

feature. But you'll see it's already

done. Okay. Um

12 slides completely done. So it uh it

named it the $1 trillion paradox. Maybe

that's what I should have named the

actual episode. And then it says how

OpenAI losing 12 billion a quarter

preparing for a $1 trillion IPO.

All right. So now on the right side uh I

can toggle through these slides and

you'll see for our live stream audience

pretty good, right? They're designed

fairly well. Uh it has a nice little

heading for each of our slides using

some bright colors going in a dark mode

that I really like. Uh it broke out,

love this, didn't even tell it to. It

broke out a uh essentially a cap table

on open on OpenAI's recapitalization

because in the context of the episode, I

specifically said Microsoft 27%, OpenAI

Foundation 26%. It took a little leeway

with putting the other 47% because

there's actually uh a little bit more of

a breakdown. But if I would have named

off the other percentages, it would have

put that together. But it accurately

kind of created this nice little cap

table on the new ownership structure of

the public benefits corporation uh of

OpenAI transitioning from a strict

nonprofit to a public benefits

corporation. It created table or a chart

there. All right. And then we have a

slide. Very nice looking slide here,

FYI. Uh with three little breakout boxes

with kind of subheadings and each of

them has a little icon. Looks good,

right? So it says uh the user first

strategy. This is one of the things that

I broke down. Says 800 million weekly

users. 70% of their revenue comes from

consumers and ecosystem stickiness. So,

not only did it do a good job of

creating very usable slides, FYI,

um, it did a great job of consolidating

and organizing all of the information

cuz yeah, yesterday's pod podcast was an

accidentally kind of long one, so it cut

through a lot of my fluff. Yeah, I know

there's fluff in the show, y'all. Um,

and it created a pretty goodlooking um,

pretty good-looking presentation here.

Okay. Uh, it also here we go on slide

nine here. Uh, it put together a kind of

a timeline on some of the other um, uh,

startups that have gone many years

without being profitable. Right? Open

AAI is technically on uh, year four of

not being profitable. it. Uh on

yesterday's show, we talked about

Amazon, Spotify, Tesla, you know, taking

between 9 to 17 years, uh to become

profitable. So, it created a nice little

timeline here visually.

So, uh pretty good. It did put some

placeholders in here. And again, let me

say this. Generative AI is generative. I

ran this exact same, uh prompt verbatim,

like two or three times last night, two

or three times today. Sometimes it will

actually create images for you using

Google Gemini, right? Sometimes it will

give you placeholders with a little more

prompting and a little more uh iterating

it. You know, you can obviously update

it accordingly.

All right, that's the gist, y'all.

I'm going to get into some advanced um

tips here and three best practices, I

think. Um but that's it. Go into Google

Gemini. Uh you don't even need a uh paid

plan to do this. Google Gemini, click

tools, click canvas, use those three

magic words, and then you have the

options to export to slides. All right.

And then that will open that

presentation. And I'll go ahead and do

that so you can see what it looks like.

Uh you can export it to Google Slides or

you can instantly download it as a PDF.

And then obviously you know if you do

right like if you are a PowerPoint

organization uh you can obviously open

this in uh Google slides and then export

it or convert it over to a PowerPoint

file if you ultimately need to make some

updates inside of PowerPoint right if

you are sharing that um you know in your

uh team in your organization.

So uh let's see there we go. So, uh,

little UIUX thing. All right. If you're

like, "Wait, where's my, uh, slides

file?" It's a very little thing on the

lower leftand corner of the screen if

you're looking for it. The first time I

clicked the export to slides, I'm like,

"Okay, well, where is it?" Okay, it's in

the bottom lefthand corner. Click that

little open slides and there you go. All

right. So, now it is uh create uh it's

created that file. It's exported it to

Google Slides. I can make any uh changes

here.

All right. Now, you might be wondering,

why not just do this in

Google Slides? Why do it in Gemini?

Well, let me tell you

or you know, why not uh yeah, why do it

in uh Google Gemini's Canvas mode? And

why not just do it in uh Google Slides

and use the Gemini option? Well, let me

show you. I'm going to put that exact

exact same prompt that I used. Okay. Uh

let me just go ahead and copy and paste

it and you'll see what I mean.

All right. So, I'm now in Google Slides.

I'm using the Gemini integration and

you'll see here in a few seconds and

I'll spoil it for you. It's not good.

It's not good at all. Right. Uh Google,

to their credit, has really improved the

Gemini integration across their

workspace um products, but some are

great, some aren't. Okay, the Gemini

integration in Gmail, hit or miss.

Gemini integration in Microsoft Word,

pretty good. Gemini integration in

Google Slides, really good. Gemini

integration in Google Vids, amazing.

Gemini integration in Google Slides.

Useless, right? So, if you're wondering,

oh well, I'm just gonna use the Google

Slides don't. It's not good. Uh, right.

In this in this case, it, you know,

didn't even work. Last time, it at least

gave me uh one or two uh ugly looking

slides. Uh, this time it didn't. All

right. So, let's get into the three tips

that you need to know to make this

better. Okay, so kind of some three

expert tips and uh live stream audience,

if you guys do have any questions, go

ahead and get them in now. We are

literally going to make this a fast and

furious episode. So, number one, start

with a screenshot to cut down on design

time.

I'm going to actually let me give you

the three tips. Number one, start with a

screenshot to cut down on design time.

Number two, understand the capabilities

and limitations, right? So, as an

example, you can't upload photos to

include even though Gemini will tell you

it can, you can't. All right? You can't

include image source links. Uh, you can

do that in Canvas. You can't do it in

the slides integration in Canvas. But

canvas in Google slides or or sorry the

uh Google slides feature inside canvas

can create greatl looking charts,

graphs, tables, breakout boxes, etc.

Tip one, start with a screenshot. Tip

two, understand capabilities and

limitation. Tip three, iterate in normal

canvas mode first with the select and

ask feature. All right. So, I'm going to

go ahead and uh kind of reverse engineer

this and show you exactly what I mean.

So, I'm going to do something a little

different here. All right. I'm going to

open a new chat here in Gemini. I'm

going to go to canvas mode. I'm going to

copy and paste this and I'm going to

tell you what I'm doing differently.

Now, here's why you need the three magic

words. I said using canvas highlight the

main points of this podcast episode and

create dramatic visuals. All right, I'm

doing this for a reason. What's going to

happen now? Well, it's going to create

probably an interactive like website. It

is not going to create a uh

presentation. Okay. Um so I'm going to

give it a minute and I pasted in the

exact same content and I'm going to show

you now. All right, it's going to take a

minute, but on my screen, uh, canvas is

doing what it's really good at, which

is, uh, writing and rendering code. All

right, that's what canvas mode is really

good at. Uh, so now, um, I'm going to

actually just iterate on this real

quick.

[Music]

Are you still running in circles trying

to figure out how to actually grow your

business with AI? Maybe your company has

been tinkering with large language

models for a year or more, but can't

really get traction to find ROI on Gen

AI. Hey, this is Jordan Wilson, host of

this very podcast. Companies like Adobe,

Microsoft, and Nvidia have partnered

with us because they trust our expertise

and educating the masses around

generative AI to get ahead. And some of

the most innovative companies in the

country hire us to help with their AI

strategy and to train hundreds of their

employees on how to use Gen AI. So

whether you're looking for chat GPD

training for thousands or just need help

building your front-end AI strategy, you

can partner with us too, just like some

of the biggest companies in the world

do, go to your everyday.com/partner

to get in contact with our team. Or you

can just click on the partner section of

our website. We'll help you stop running

in those AI circles and help get your

team ahead and build a straight path to

ROI on Genai.

All right, it didn't give me quite

enough info. So, I'm just saying uh

please include more info. Please try

again. But what it did is it created

almost like an interactive website with

the same content that I pasted in using

canvas mode. All right. I wanted it to

have a little bit more information. Uh

usually when I do a simple prompt like

that, it will include a lot more. Um so

it's going to rebuild this. So an

example, you can do the exact same

thing. This is the iteration or

iterating in natural language um with

your presentation. So you can just say

make this more visual, include more

information. Hey, I pasted in a lot, but

you didn't include A, B, and C. Please

include it. So iterate with your slides

once they are done. Say in slide six,

change this. But a little tip, here we

go. All right. So first I just did a

normal kind of website presentation. So

use this feature.

There is a select and ask feature in the

bottom right hand corner when you are

using normal canvas mode in Google

Gemini. Okay, this is not going to show

up once you are kind of in slides mode.

But the trick is to use it in the normal

canvas mode first because it's an

extremely powerful uh little tool and

then you can create the canvas mode or

sorry the uh the slides mode once you've

used it. So as an example uh I'm going

to use this select and ask feature. It

broke out uh one section and kind of

created three separate boxes. All right.

Uh product velocity, revenue levers, and

infrastructure deals. All right. from

the podcast episode yesterday. So, I can

highlight that and then a little box

pops up that says ask Gemini. All right.

And I'm going to say um it made four

bullet points and it's not the best

layout. So, I'm going to say please

add icons to the top of the boxes

and limit to three bullet points only.

Okay, so this is a very powerful

feature. So if you've ever had to

iterate on anything in any large

language model, the downside is

generative AI is generative AI. So you

can try the best with your words and

say, "Hey, on this paragraph that says

A, B, and C, make XYZ changes." But

sometimes it's going to change the top,

the bottom, and everything in between.

So, with this select and ask feature,

you literally drag a box over just the

section that you want to update. Give it

changes in natural language. Um, and

then most of the time it is only going

to update those things. So, let's scroll

down. Bam. We got it. It worked. Yay. A

live generative AI demo worked. Great.

Okay. So, that's kind of one of the

three uh tips there. uh technically too

because I know the uh the capabilities

and the limitations as well. So I know

as an example one thing that uh Gemini

canvas can do really well is it creates

nice looking breakout boxes with icons

right which translate really well to

slides. All right so technically we did

two of our advanced tips. All right um

we used some of the normal canvas

features before kind of quote unquote

going into slides mode. uh we understood

the capabilities and limitations and

then I'm going to iterate with a

screenshot. So I have a screenshot here

of kind of our normal slides layout.

Okay. Um and I'm just going to

uh drag that in. Sorry live stream

audience. Lot of jumping around here uh

in my different tabs. Okay. So I'm just

going to drop that into the chat window

on the lefth hand side. And all I'm

going to say is um this is our normal uh

style. Uh please update the presentation

accordingly to reflect this style. So

what's going to hopefully happen here?

Um it's going to kind of take into

account um kind of the design choices.

My live stream slides are ugly. It's

fine. Um you can tell me y'all. This

this for you know to help keep me on

track. Um, but it's going to take in the

colors, the layout, and even the it's

going to try to match up fonts. So, you

can't upload a slide deck to start with,

uh, and then say, you know, convert this

to a Google slide, right? So, that's not

what it is. But, you can upload multiple

examples of how you would normally build

slides, right? whether there's a certain

layout. My I guess my brand on slides is

ugly. Uh right, so it's probably

technically going to make this uglier

because the version that it did was

actually pretty good. And so it's

probably going to make a worse visual.

But if I want consistent uh visuals, if

I want consistent branding uh right

across uh the slides that I ask Canvas

to create, uh this is the way to do it.

So it is iterating. And FYI y'all, as

with anything else, there's there's

going to be this uh as you wait, even

though it's not a ton of time, it gives

you the chain of thought. So, click on

that and always read what's happening

because as an example, sometimes large

language models, especially new

features, are buggy. They don't always

know what they're talking about. They

don't know their capabilities. Uh,

right? Because as an example, you can

upload images in normal canvas mode. You

can't do that when you go into slides

mode. Okay. Uh, so bam, we're done. It

created it did a really good job of uh,

you know, making the really good-looking

slides that it had created on its own

uh, with Gemini canvas's style. It just

made them uglier now, but it matched,

right? But it matched exactly what I

uploaded, right? It put kind of the the

bluish heading uh the reddish kind of

subhead and then the big white bullet

points and the call to action at the

bottom. So it did a pretty good job of

just changing based on the information

uh that I uploaded.

All right. Uh

so yeah. Okay. Juliet says the colors

are muted. I wouldn't call them ugly. I

don't know. All right. I' I'd say it's a

little ugly. Um All right. Uh, Jean

says, "Can Gemini slides make a

presentation from a YouTube clip URL

like one of your episode uh episodes for

example?"

Kind of kind of, right? So, it depends

on what version of Google Gemini you

have. So as an example, not all

workspace counts um accounts have the uh

essential uh YouTube app integration

inside Gemini canvas. Like for that I

would have to use my personal account. I

have multiple paid accounts but

technically yes you can. Um right so

inside canvas right like the same with

any large language model you can take

advantage of the context window. So yes,

uh Google Gemini in general uh does a

great job of integrating with your Gmail

if you uh enable those apps and

extensions, right? So if you want to

know uh how to access that, let me just

go ahead and show you. Uh you would go

into your settings, you would go into

apps,

and then you can toggle uh these apps

on. And for Yeah. Okay, good. I was

right. I'm like, man, I hope I don't get

this uh I hope I don't get this wrong.

So yeah, for whatever reason, Google

Workspace accounts um don't have the

YouTube app um integrated inside Google

Gemini. I don't understand why. Um but

they do have uh Asauna in Mailchimp,

right? But they also have Gmail, Google

Docs, Google Keep, Google Task, Google

Drive, Google Calendar. Uh right, but

Gan, a great question. Use take

advantage of all of the features that a

large language model has, specifically

the contacts window. Right. So you

could, as an example, pull in

information from all of your different

Google Drive files, your Google

calendar, your Gmail, right? If you're

putting something together for a client,

as an example, it can go look at your

calendar. Say, oh, you have three

meetings. Here's what the meeting's

covering. Let me see. Oh, it looks like

you're, you know, going over Q4 KPIs. I

see that in your calendar notes. Let me

go look through your Gmail. Oh, uh,

looks like there's some documents I need

to reference. Yes, you can do that

inside Google Gemini. uh keep that in

the context window and then use canvas

and that three uh the magic three-word

phrase create a presentation and then

yes it will uh create slides. All right.

Uh yeah, Jackie Jackie here echoing what

I said. Uh she said 100% Jordan when I

wanted to add a slide in Google Slides

it sucked. It's not that good, right?

It's not but it's actually legit really

really good inside Google Gemini. So now

you all know the cheat code. That's it

y'all. Actually, no. I want to ask you,

what should we cover next week, right?

As we wrap, uh on Mondays, we do the AI

news that matters. We go over usually

the top 10 AI news stories of the week

that impact your company or career.

Tuesdays, we kind of do hot take

Tuesdays. Uh you know, kind of my

opinion on something that's happening. I

did my opinion on the whole Open AI

restructure and $1 trillion IPO. And

then on Wednesdays, we do this AI at

work on Wednesdays. So, uh, live stream

audience, let me know what should we

tackle next week. Also, podcast

audience, if you're listening on

Spotify, go scroll down in the show

notes. There's going to be a poll today.

I'm going to be including more polls uh,

inside of Spotify. So, what should we

tackle next week for putting AI to work

on Wednesdays? Claude skills, really

great new feature people aren't talking

about. Uh, notebook LM updates. There's

actually been quite a few uh notebook LM

updates, different video styles, context

windows, a ton of things or going over.

Again, these are three low-key updates

that are pretty big. The third one, Chad

GBT's company knowledge. So, this is

only available uh if you have a business

uh kind of team plan or an enterprise

plan, but there's actually new

connectors and some new features and

functionalities if you do have a team

plan. So, go vote live stream audience,

let me know. just say skills notebook LM

company knowledge and that's it. I hope

today's show was helpful. But here's the

reality. If you want to save time with

generative AI, you need to use the right

tool at the right time for the right

purpose. And I think regardless of what

you work on, so many people have to

create presentations. And like I said,

yes, there's great AI tools that create

are dedicated to creating AI, you know,

slides, presentations. They can be buggy

and a lot of them require a separate

subscription.

PowerPoint has completely dominated the

presentation scene for decades. Yet I

know probably less than 5% of people

that I talk to who have Microsoft 365

Copilot license actually have access to

all of Microsoft Copilot's features

including creating uh PowerPoints with

AI with Copilot. So I think in this case

Google Gemini can be your go-to tool.

Take advantage of the power of Gemini

2.5 Pro. Take advantage of the context

window. Take advantage of everything

that Google Gemini can access in terms

uh of your apps and all of its

capabilities. And then use that magic

threeword phrase, create a presentation.

I hope this was helpful. If so, go to

your everyday.com.

If you're listening on the podcast, I'd

appreciate it if you subscribe to the

podcast, follow us, leave us a rating.

Thanks for tuning in. Hope to see you

back tomorrow and everyday for more

Everyday AI. Thanks y'all.

And that's a wrap for today's edition of

Everyday AI. Thanks for joining us. If

you enjoyed this episode, please

subscribe and leave us a rating. It

helps keep us going. For a little more

AI magic, visit your everyday.com and

sign up to our daily newsletter so you

don't get left behind. Go break some

barriers and we'll see you next