Slides + Gemini: the deck writes its first draft.
Docs, Sheets, and Gmail get all the attention — but the deck is where Workspace work becomes a meeting. Gemini in Slides turns a document into a presentable draft and turns you into its art director.
01 Document first, always
The winning workflow mirrors every good deck process: write the substance in Docs (with Gemini's help — see Docs mastery), then generate the deck FROM the doc: "Create a presentation from this document — 10 slides for [audience], one idea per slide, end with next steps." Thinking happens in prose; slides inherit real structure instead of decorating a blank outline.
02 Direct it like a designer
03 Speaker notes and the rehearsal
Ask for the talk track, not just the slides: "Write speaker notes — conversational, 60 seconds per slide, with transitions." Then rehearse against the machine: "What are the three hardest questions this audience will ask, per section?" The deck gets you into the room; the prepared answers are what the room remembers.
Before shipping: "Review as [the audience]: which slide loses them, and does every slide have a takeaway?" Slides without takeaways get merged or cut. This ten-minute pass outperforms an hour of theme-fiddling, every time.
04 Honest limits
Treat output as the 70% draft that took minutes: structurally sound, visually serviceable. Data-dense custom graphics and pixel-perfect brand work still want human hands — spend your reclaimed hours on the slide that actually persuades.
Take an existing Doc and generate a 10-slide deck into your template. Run the review pass. Compare minutes spent against your last deck.
Open Gemini →This week's challenge
Next real presentation: Doc first, generate, three rounds of direction, notes, review pass — and spend at least half the saved time on your numbers slide. Track the hours; that's the lesson's invoice.