Iro AIWhat you'll be able to do
- Write a prompt that produces a deck you can actually present
- Decide between presentation, document, and webpage mode
- Avoid burning free credits on drafts
- Export in the format that survives the handoff
Inside the path
A focused set of five-minute lessons. Each one ends with a hands-on exercise, not a quiz you can guess.
Prompt the structure, not the topic 5 min
Why "a deck about our Q3 results" produces filler and what to write instead.
Designing for the 16:9 canvas 5 min
Why a fixed slide changes how much you put on each one.
Credits are finite 5 min
Where the 400 free credits go and how to not waste them.
Exporting cleanly 5 min
PDF, PPTX and Google Slides, and what to check in each.
Try a sample exercise
This is the kind of card you'd practice inside Iro: you do the thinking, then get feedback.
◆ Sample exercise · Prompt practice
You need an investor update deck covering last quarter: revenue up 40%, two enterprise customers signed, churn slightly worse, and a hiring ask.
Your task: Choose the prompt most likely to produce a deck you can present without rebuilding it.
- "Create a professional investor update presentation for our startup's Q3 results."
- "8-slide investor update. Slide 1: headline, revenue up 40% QoQ. Slides 2 to 3: the two enterprise logos signed and what they unlock. Slide 4: churn rose from 3% to 4%, with the cause and the fix. Slides 5 to 6: hiring ask, two engineers, with the reasoning. Slide 7: risks. Slide 8: what we need from you. Direct tone, numbers in headlines, no filler."
- "Make the best possible investor deck. Use your judgment on structure and make it visually stunning."
- "Q3 results: revenue, customers, churn, hiring."
See why the second prompt wins
The second prompt wins because it supplies the two things Gamma cannot infer: the structure (how many slides and what goes on each) and the specifics (40%, 3% to 4%, two engineers). Given only a topic, the model fills space with generic business language, which is where the "AI deck" look comes from. Notice it also carries the uncomfortable number. A deck that hides worsening churn does not survive the first question, and telling the tool to include it is how you keep the argument honest. The vague prompts produce something that looks finished and says nothing.
The prompt decides everything
Gamma's output quality tracks the specificity of your prompt almost linearly. Give it a topic and you get filler with nice typography. Give it a structure and real numbers and you get a draft worth editing.
The pattern that works: state the number of slides, say what belongs on each, include your actual figures, and set a tone. It feels like more work than typing a sentence, and it is, but it replaces the twenty minutes you would otherwise spend rewriting generic content.
Design for the 16:9 canvas
Presentations in Gamma now use a fixed 16:9 canvas with layouts built on grids. Content is arranged to fit the slide, so the old habit of letting a card grow to hold a long paragraph no longer works for decks. Plan one idea per slide and move detail into speaker notes.
There is also a document mode that produces long-form scrollable content instead of a slide-by-slide deck, which suits memos, reports, and proposals. Choosing the wrong mode is a common early mistake: if the output is meant to be read rather than presented, document mode is the better container.
Credits, and not wasting them
The free plan comes with 400 one-time AI credits, and they do not refresh; paid plans provide a refreshing monthly allowance. Gamma does not charge a fixed amount per deck: credit use depends on the task, the model, and how long the generation is, so a 10-slide draft costs less than a long, image-heavy one. The free plan also caps a single prompt at 10 slides, against 100 on paid plans.
The practical consequence: do not use generation as a thinking tool. Work out your structure first, then generate once against a detailed prompt, then edit by hand. Regenerating repeatedly to "see what it comes up with" is how people burn their free credits in an afternoon and end up with a deck no better than their second attempt.
Exporting without surprises
Gamma exports to PDF, PNG, and PowerPoint (PPTX), and you reach Google Slides by uploading the PPTX.
PowerPoint export is now a usable editing format. Gamma embeds your theme's heading and body fonts in the file, exports tables as real, editable tables, and includes speaker notes. Two things still need a check: italic text uses a slanted version of the regular font, and there is no slide master, so changes have to be made slide by slide.
Google Slides is where fonts change. It ignores fonts embedded in an uploaded PowerPoint file and substitutes its own, so text can reflow. If the deck is going to Google Slides, look through every slide after the upload, or pick theme fonts Google Slides already has. For a file nobody needs to edit, PDF is still the simplest handoff.