August. Let's get ready for school. Comparing Gamma, Beautiful.ai, and Copilot.

I know, I’m a week late with this month’s newsletter—again. So much has happened recently, and I’ve met so many incredible people. Honestly, it’s impossible to share everything with you here. But if you’re curious and want to hear more, why not invite me to lunch? I’d love to catch up!

As a side note, I’m literally on the move while writing this. I’m speaking into ChatGPT as I stroll around the new SinSay in P?avnieki with my wife. She enjoys visiting these super cheap stores, where she occasionally discovers some hidden gems. It’s a nice alternative comparing to places like Alan Deco, where nothing really seems to fit and everything is overpriced by three times. So, I don’t mind these little excursions.

But let’s get to the main point. Recently, I’ve been researching AI tools for creating presentations. I’ve compiled some fascinating findings and, in the spirit of leveraging AI, the following section will be generated using AI based on the data from my research.

In today's fast-paced digital world, the demand for efficient and intelligent tools to create visually appealing presentations is higher than ever. Three leading tools in this space—Gamma.app, Beautiful.ai, and Microsoft Copilot for PowerPoint—promise to harness the power of AI to streamline and enhance the presentation creation process. In this newsletter, we’ll explore the results of a recent comparison of these tools, examining their strengths and limitations across various features.

Key Areas of Comparison

The evaluation focused on several critical aspects of presentation creation, including:

1. Export and Import Capabilities: How well each tool handles PowerPoint files in terms of exporting and importing existing presentations.

2. User Experience (Grades): The ease of use and user satisfaction, graded on a scale from 0 to 10.

3. Template and Layout Integration: The ability to utilize and edit existing PowerPoint templates and layouts effectively.

1. Export and Import Capabilities

- Gamma.app: Gamma.app provides a robust export functionality, allowing users to export PowerPoint files with ease. However, it requires a full license to remove watermarks, which could be a drawback for casual users. Importing existing PowerPoint files is partially supported, though the tool struggles with formatting, leading to a messy output.

- Beautiful.ai: Beautiful.ai excels in exporting PowerPoint slides, even allowing single-slide exports. However, importing presentations has some issues, such as occasional crashes and slow performance. The tool struggles with mapping imported content accurately to its templates, leading to a cumbersome editing process.

- Microsoft Copilot for PowerPoint: Microsoft Copilot integrates seamlessly with PowerPoint, offering native export and import capabilities. Importing existing presentations works well, though the AI struggles with understanding complex layouts, resulting in some functionality gaps when editing.

2. User Experience

User experience was graded on a scale from 0 to 10:

- Gamma.app: Received mixed reviews with an average grade of 3 out of 10. Users noted frustration with its limited capabilities in handling imported PowerPoint files and the need for a full license to unlock essential features.

- Beautiful.ai: Scored higher with an average grade of 7 out of 10. Users appreciated its intuitive interface and strong export options, though they pointed out its limitations with importing and editing existing presentations.

- Microsoft Copilot for PowerPoint: Achieved the highest average grade of 5 out of 10, largely due to its seamless integration with PowerPoint. However, users highlighted the AI's challenges with layout functionalities, which slightly marred the otherwise excellent user experience.

3. Template and Layout Integration

- Gamma.app: Struggles significantly with integrating existing PowerPoint templates and layouts, which users found disappointing.

- Beautiful.ai: While it doesn’t fully understand PowerPoint layouts, it does allow users to utilize its own templates effectively. However, editing and customization options are limited, which can be a hindrance for users looking for more control.

- Microsoft Copilot for PowerPoint: Despite its advanced AI, Copilot also struggles with understanding and editing complex PowerPoint layouts. While it can import layouts, the AI's limitations mean that users often have to manually adjust elements to achieve the desired results.

Conclusion

Each of these AI-powered tools brings something unique to the table, catering to different user needs:

- Gamma.app is a good choice for those who need basic presentation capabilities with AI support, though it may not be ideal for users who require seamless import and layout editing.

- Beautiful.ai offers a more polished user experience with strong export options, making it suitable for users who prioritize ease of use over deep customization.

- Microsoft Copilot for PowerPoint stands out for its deep integration with PowerPoint and excellent export/import capabilities, making it the top choice for users who need robust support for existing presentations, albeit with some limitations in layout editing.

As AI continues to evolve, these tools are likely to improve, offering even more powerful features to help users create stunning presentations with minimal effort.

Need proof? Let's take the upper text, put it in a pdf and generate a presentation of 7 slides. The prompt says literally that: "an engaging presentation of 7 slides". Here you go.

Gemma.app: https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/uldiskarlovskarlovskis_made-with-gamma-comparing-ai-tools-for-activity-7230575935186509824-kPa0

Beautiful.ai: https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/uldiskarlovskarlovskis_made-with-beautiful-comparing-ai-tools-activity-7230576558854275072-5HAB

(talking to ChatGPT) So, I’m back home now, and it’s time to cook some eggs—or something quick. But before I go, I’d love to hear your thoughts! How did you like this AI-generated content? Please share your opinions in the comments. Btw, I didn't provide data in a well-structured format to the ChatGPT and then needed to make a few small corrections. If I'd improved that, the text would have been even better. Here's the real data (if you can see it):

Use case

Let me give you a simple use case. How much time are you spending to find a proper clipart picture? Googling for images without watermarks or going to some stock libraries? I sometimes do it for a few minutes and then give up in desperation. This is from my old presentation:

I uploaded it to Beautiful.ai, clicked on the person, asked to replace it, and wrote a prompt "construction worker, clipart, transparent background". 5 seconds later I have something unique:

Of course, I could have spent a bit more time and get a better result. Good enough to show you the magic.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention why I wrote this in the first place. A big shoutout to Dr. Edgars Volskis from RBS, who introduced me to the incredible Beautiful.ai tool. His demonstration inspired me to dive into this simple research, and I hope you found it as useful as I did. Let’s keep finding ways to save time and streamline our work! Send it to your friend-teacher.

And don’t forget—mark your calendars for the DevOps and Agile Summer Retreat event this Thursday. It’s going to be a great time, and I hope to see you all there.