# A complete guide to making your decks not AI

*From Analyst Academy. Load this file into your AI slide tool before you build anything.*

---

## Why this exists

AI can build a deck in about the time it takes to refill your coffee. The problem is that everyone else's AI builds the same deck. Same little label above the title. Same "Key takeaway" box at the bottom. Same title that says "Q3 Overview" and nothing else.

Your audience has seen that deck. They've seen it so many times they can spot it from the back of the room, and the moment they do, they stop reading and start judging.

"AI-looking" doesn't mean "a model touched it." It means **familiar defaults**. This file is a list of those defaults and what to do instead, written so you can hand it straight to ChatGPT, Claude, Gamma, Copilot, or whatever you're using, and have it follow the rules for you.

---

## How to use this file

1. **Load it before you start.** Paste the whole file (or the short prompt at the bottom) into your tool's custom instructions, project instructions, system prompt, or "knowledge" upload. In a plain chat, paste it as your first message and say "Follow these rules for every slide in this conversation."
2. **Give the tool real material.** Your numbers, your source, your audience, your one-sentence point. The rules below can't invent substance. They can only stop the tool from faking it.
3. **Ask for the storyline before the slides.** Have it write every slide title as a full sentence first. If the titles read like a story on their own, then build slides.
4. **Run the checklist at the end.** Ask the tool to audit its own output against the checklist, then check it yourself. It will miss things. That's what you're for.

---

## What 100 AI vs 100 real slides showed

Paul Moss compared 100 slides from the 17 AI presentation tools in his comparison video with 100 real slides from 23 top consulting firms, banks and research firms. The question: which tells actually separate AI slides from the real thing? Five did most of the work.

| The tell | AI slides | Real slides |
|---|---|---|
| Anything above the title (a kicker, ALL-CAPS eyebrow, breadcrumb or pill) | 46% | 8% |
| Production slips (overlap, overflow, leftover placeholders) | 30% | 7% |
| Same-shape sentences (colon or em-dash titles) | 40% | 19% |
| Full-height colored edge strip | 17% | 1% |
| Takeaway box or bottom banner | 18% | 3% |

80% of the AI slides had at least one of these, against 21% of the real slides.

Some well-known tells turned out to be weak. Accent lines on boxes (2% vs 0%), the bar under the title (12% vs 8%), stat tiles (9% vs 7%) and three identical boxes (6% vs 3%) barely separated the two sets. Stock images and numbers with no visible source were common in both. And real decks used accent color everywhere, icons in circles and bold keywords more often than the AI tools did.

That doesn't make the weak tells good design. It means they won't, on their own, make a deck read as AI-made. Every tell below now carries a signal rating, so you know what to fix first.

*How this was measured: the AI set is 94 slides, taken from 720p frames of Paul's video comparing 17 AI presentation tools. The real set is 100 slides sampled stratified-randomly from [SlideStart](https://www.slidestart.com) (23 firms, 90 published decks, no cover slides). One person scored every slide against the same rubric and wasn't blind to which set a slide came from, so treat the numbers as a strong hint, not a lab result. For the 80% figure, same-shape sentences counts em-dash titles only.*

---

## The tells (and what to do instead)

The 31 tells fall into three groups. **Visual redesign** (how the slide looks): 2, 3, 6, 18, 19, 20, 22 to 27 and 31. **Structure redesign** (how slides and the deck are built): 1, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 15, 21, 28, 29 and 30. **Content redesign** (what the words and numbers say): 4, 8, 12, 13, 14, 16 and 17. They're numbered below in the order they were added.

Each tell has a signal rating from the comparison. **Strong signal** means it separated AI slides from real ones. **Some signal** means a smaller gap. **Weak signal** means real decks do it too, so it won't give a deck away by itself, though the fix is usually still worth making. **Not measured** means the comparison couldn't test it. The five strong ones are 19, 29, 12, 31 and 30.

### 1. Generic titles

**Signal:** More common in real decks, so treat as a weak signal. 30% of AI slides vs 43% of real slides.

**The tell:** "Overview." "Key Insights." "Market Landscape." "Next Steps." A title that could sit on top of any slide in any company is a label, not a point.

**Do this instead:** Write a **takeaway title**: one full sentence that says what the slide proves.
- Not: "Q3 Revenue"
- Yes: "Q3 revenue grew, but almost all of it came from two accounts"

Test: if someone reads only your titles, do they get the argument? If not, rewrite the titles.

### 2. Emoji bullets and icons in circles

**Signal:** More common in real decks, so treat as a weak signal. 18% of AI slides vs 34% of real slides.

**The tell:** 🚀 at the start of every line. A lightbulb in a circle next to "Ideas." A handshake next to "Partnerships." Decoration that repeats the word it sits next to.

**Do this instead:** Drop them. If a visual doesn't teach something the words don't, it's wallpaper. Use the space for a real chart, a screenshot, a photo of the actual thing, or nothing at all.

### 3. Purple glow gradients and glassmorphism

**Signal:** Common in real decks too, so treat as a weak signal. 6% of AI slides vs 8% of real slides.

**The tell:** Navy fading into violet. Glowing orbs. Frosted-glass cards floating on a gradient. Gradient text. It's the default "AI aesthetic" and people now read it as exactly that.

**Do this instead:** Use a **restrained palette**: one background, one text color, one muted gray for secondary info, and **one** accent color used only to point at what matters. Flat fills. No glow. No gradient text. If you have brand colors, use those and nothing else. (Purple isn't the only default anymore: see tell 26.)

### 4. "Unlock / Elevate / Delve" wording

**Signal:** Some signal. 15% of AI slides vs 8% of real slides.

**The tell:** *Unlock* growth. *Elevate* the experience. *Delve* into the data. *Leverage* synergies. *Game-changer.* *Seamless.* *Robust.* *In today's fast-paced world.* Words that sound like something and mean nothing.

**Do this instead:** Use **specific nouns and plain verbs**. Name the product, the team, the number, the date, the place. "Cut onboarding from three weeks to one" beats "streamline the onboarding journey" every single time.

Banned list for your tool: unlock, elevate, delve, dive in, leverage, empower, harness, seamless, robust, game-changer, cutting-edge, transformative, synergy, journey (unless someone is literally traveling), "in today's fast-paced world," "let's explore."

### 5. The symmetric three-icon grid

**Signal:** Common in real decks too, so treat as a weak signal. 11% of AI slides vs 8% of real slides. Three identical boxes alone: 6% vs 3%.

**The tell:** Three equal boxes. Three icons. Three bold words. Three lines of text, all the same length. Every slide. Real ideas don't come in identical sets of three.

**Do this instead:** Use **asymmetric layouts** that follow the content. One big thing and two small things. A chart taking up two-thirds of the slide with a short annotation on the side. If you have four points, show four. If one matters most, make it bigger. And don't put each item in its own rounded box (tell 18).

### 6. Stock 3D blobs and generic hero images

**Signal:** Common in real decks too, so treat as a weak signal. 94% of AI slides vs 57% of real slides. Of slides that had an image.

**The tell:** Glossy abstract shapes. A glowing brain. A floating 3D cube. A robot hand touching a human hand. A too-perfect product render with studio lighting and no texture. Images that have nothing to do with the claim on the slide.

**Do this instead:** Show **the object from the topic**: the real product, the real screenshot, the real chart, the real place. If there's no relevant image, use no image. A clean slide with one strong sentence is better than a slide with an unrelated blob.

### 7. Uniform bullet walls

**Signal:** Common in real decks too, so treat as a weak signal. 21% of AI slides vs 17% of real slides. Bold lead-ins on bullets: 17% vs 30%.

**The tell:** Five to seven bullets per slide, every slide, each roughly the same length, each starting with a bolded two-word phrase and a colon. It reads like the model filled a quota.

**Do this instead:** **One idea per slide.** If a slide needs seven bullets, it's probably three slides. Vary the rhythm: a slide with one number, then a slide with a chart, then a slide with a short list. Quiet, dense, quiet.

### 8. Fake stats

**Signal:** Common in real decks too, so treat as a weak signal. 80% of AI slides vs 53% of real slides. Of slides that had numbers: no visible source.

**The tell:** "73% of executives agree..." with no source. Suspiciously round numbers. Charts with made-up data that look plausible. AI tools will invent numbers confidently, and your audience only has to catch one to stop trusting all of them.

**Do this instead:** **Real data only.** Every number on a slide needs a source you could name if someone asked. If you don't have the number, say so, leave a placeholder like [DATA NEEDED: churn rate by segment], and go get it. Never let the tool fill the gap.

### 9. Centered everything

**Signal:** Some signal. 6% of AI slides vs 0% of real slides. Rare, but never seen in the real slides.

**The tell:** Centered titles, centered bullets, centered paragraphs, centered images, perfect symmetry on every slide. It looks "designed," but it's the layout equivalent of default settings.

**Do this instead:** **Left-align body text.** Use a consistent grid and margins. Center only short things: a single big number, a one-line quote, a section break. Let whitespace sit unevenly where the content wants it.

### 10. Same layout on every slide

**Signal:** Not measured. Deck-level, so not measured on single slides.

**The tell:** The same card grid or same title-plus-bullets template repeated for twenty slides. Pill-shaped labels everywhere. Rounded corners on everything. (Those last two get their own entries in the visual tells: 18, 24 and 27.)

**Do this instead:** Rotate a small set of layouts (a big-statement slide, a chart slide, a comparison slide) based on what each slide needs to do. Consistency comes from your fonts, colors and margins, not from making every slide identical.

### 11. Chart junk and decorative diagrams

**Signal:** More common in real decks, so treat as a weak signal. 39% of AI slides vs 49% of real slides. Of slides that had a chart or diagram.

**The tell:** 3D pie charts. Legends far from the data. Every gridline visible. A "cycle" or "funnel" diagram that doesn't describe a real process.

**Do this instead:** Takeaway title, then the chart, then an annotation pointing at the thing you want people to see. Mute everything that isn't the point (gray), highlight the one thing that is (your accent color). Use a diagram only when the process actually works that way.

### 12. Hedge-y, same-shape sentences

**Signal:** Strong signal. 40% of AI slides vs 19% of real slides. Colon titles and em-dash pivots.

**The tell:** Every sentence the same length and structure. Colon-title stacks ("Growth: The Path Forward"). Em-dash pivots in every line. (The two worst sentence habits, "it's not just X, it's Y" and groups of three, get their own entries below.)

**Do this instead:** Write like you'd say it in the meeting. Short sentences. Some shorter. Active voice. Read it out loud; if you wouldn't say it to a colleague, rewrite it.

The next five tells are about the words, not the design. Wikipedia's editors keep a running field guide to spotting AI text ([Signs of AI writing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signs_of_AI_writing)), and these habits show up on slides just as often as they do in articles.

### 13. Inflated significance

**Signal:** Some signal. 3% of AI slides vs 0% of real slides. Rare, but never seen in the real slides.

**The tell:** "A pivotal moment." "A testament to the team's hard work." "Plays a crucial role in our growth." "Part of a broader trend." The slide tells you something matters instead of showing what happened. AI loves to announce that ordinary events mark a shift or leave a lasting mark.

**Do this instead:** State what actually happened and how big it was. "We launched in two new regions in May" says more than "marks a pivotal moment in our expansion." If it really was a turning point, the facts will make that case without help. If you don't have the size, leave a [DATA NEEDED: ...] placeholder and go find it.

### 14. Vague attributions

**Signal:** Not seen in either set, so treat as a weak signal. 0% of AI slides vs 0% of real slides.

**The tell:** "Experts say." "Studies show." "Many believe." "Industry reports suggest." The claim borrows authority from someone who never gets named, usually because there isn't anyone.

**Do this instead:** Name the source or cut the claim. A named person, report or dataset, with a date, is a source. "Experts" is not. If the tool can't tell you who said it, write [SOURCE NEEDED: who said this?] and check before you present. An unnamed expert is a fake stat in a blazer.

### 15. The tidy future-outlook ending

**Signal:** Not measured. Closing slides only, so not compared.

**The tell:** The last slide is called "Challenges and Future Prospects." It opens with "Despite these challenges..." and closes with something hopeful about the road ahead. It's how AI wraps up a school report, and it leaves the room with nothing to do.

**Do this instead:** End on the decision or the ask. What do you need from these people, and by when? "Approve one more analyst hire by Friday" is an ending. "The future looks bright" is a shrug. If there are real risks, put them next to the decision they affect, not in a closing roundup.

### 16. "It's not just X, it's Y"

**Signal:** Rare in both sets, so treat as a weak signal. 1% of AI slides vs 1% of real slides.

**The tell:** "It's not just a tool, it's a mindset." "Not only faster, but smarter." The setup knocks down a claim nobody made so the second half can sound profound. Once in a deck is a tic. Once per slide is a tell.

**Do this instead:** Delete the first half and say Y plainly. Then check that Y is specific. "It's a mindset" usually means nobody has worked out what it does yet. "The tool writes the first draft of the monthly report" is a point.

### 17. Groups of three by habit

**Signal:** Some signal. 21% of AI slides vs 11% of real slides.

**The tell:** "Fast, simple and powerful." "Faster decisions, happier teams, better results." Adjectives come in threes, and so do the bullets, whether or not there are three things to say. It's the sentence version of the three-icon grid in tell 5.

**Do this instead:** Use as many items as you actually have. Two strong reasons beat two strong reasons plus a filler. If one item in a list of three is vaguer than the others, it's probably there for the rhythm. Cut it.

---

## The visual tells

Tells 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10 and 11 above are about design, but they're the 2023 versions: purple glow, rocket emoji, three icons in three circles. The tools have moved on, and so have the tells. The newest ones are smaller and more systematic: little labels, colored lines, boxes inside boxes. Paul Moss flagged the first four from AI-built decks he's reviewed. Tells 22 to 28 come from designers, deck-tool reviewers and people on Reddit naming what gives a deck away (see [Sources](#sources) at the end). Tells 29 to 31 come from the 100 vs 100 comparison. One of these on one slide is a choice. The same one on every slide is a tell.

### 18. Rounded boxes with a colored accent line

**Signal:** Rare in both sets, so treat as a weak signal. 2% of AI slides vs 0% of real slides. Only 2 of the 94 AI slides had it, but Paul saw one deck repeat it on 18 of 28 slides.

**The tell:** A white box with rounded corners, and one edge (the left side or the top) picked out in a different color. Then another one next to it. Then a whole row of them, on slide after slide. In one AI-built deck Paul reviewed, it appeared on 18 of 28 slides, and he calls it one of the most obvious AI tells. Designers building anti-AI rules for their own tools say the same thing, and some ban the shape outright. The 100 vs 100 comparison adds a twist: it never showed up in the real slides, but it was rare in the AI set too (2 of 94 slides). So it's a weak signal across tools, and a loud one when a deck repeats it. Paul's advice stands: get rid of it.

**Do this instead:** No boxes with accent lines. None. Separate ideas with whitespace and alignment, the way a well-set page does. If two things really need to be grouped, use a thin gray rule or a square-cornered area with no colored edge. If one thing matters more than the rest, make it bigger or put it in the accent color; don't give it a stripe. Test: delete the box. If the slide is just as clear, the box was decoration.

### 19. Anything above the title (the #1 tell)

**Signal:** Strong signal. 46% of AI slides vs 8% of real slides. The #1 tell in the 100 vs 100 comparison.

**The tell:** Something sitting above the real title. Most often it's a small, letter-spaced, all-caps label: "EXECUTIVE SUMMARY," "KEY INSIGHT," "01 / THE PROBLEM." It's the "eyebrow" from web design. Just as often it's a kicker line in sentence case, a breadcrumb ("Strategy > Growth"), or a pill or tag. Paul flagged the all-caps version from his deck reviews, and the comparison backs him up and widens it: 46% of AI slides had something above the title, against 8% of real slides. That made it the strongest tell in the whole comparison. It usually repeats what the title already says. Real decks do it too, but rarely, and when they do it's a section name or an "Appendix" label.

**Do this instead:** Start the slide with the title, and let the title do the work. A takeaway title (tell 1) doesn't need a label announcing its topic. If you genuinely need section markers, build them into your template once, small, in sentence case, and use them in the same place every time.

### 20. The accent bar above or under the title

**Signal:** Common in real decks too, so treat as a weak signal. 12% of AI slides vs 8% of real slides. Measured as a rule under the title.

**The tell:** A short, thick bar of color sitting at the top left, just above the title, or a colored rule right under it. It's there to look "designed," it carries no information, and it shows up on every slide. Paul doesn't like it, and it's another AI default. In the comparison, though, real decks used a rule under the title almost as often (12% of AI slides vs 8% of real), some as house style. It's a weak signal on its own.

**Do this instead:** Leave it out. The title's size, weight and position already tell people where to start reading. If your brand template has a fixed graphic element, use that, exactly as designed, not a bar the tool added.

### 21. The full-sentence subtitle on the title page

**Signal:** Not measured. The real set had no cover slides.

**The tell:** A title slide with a big title and then a whole sentence (sometimes two) of subtitle underneath: "A comprehensive analysis of our performance, key drivers and strategic priorities for the year ahead." It's more text than the slide needs, and it reads weird: nobody puts a paragraph on a cover. It's the same habit as giving every point a title and a subtitle when the title already says it all.

**Do this instead:** Keep the title-page subtitle short (the audience, the meeting, the date) or drop it. If the title states the point, the subtitle has nothing left to add.

### 22. Everything the same weight

**Signal:** Common in real decks too, so treat as a weak signal. 16% of AI slides vs 17% of real slides.

**The tell:** Four points, four equal boxes, four equal fonts. The headline is barely bigger than the body. A throwaway caption competes with the main number. Nothing on the slide wins, so the audience has to read everything to find the point. Designers name this as one of the most reliable signs of an AI slide.

**Do this instead:** Decide what the eye should land on first (one number, one chart, one sentence) and make it unmistakably dominant: bigger, heavier, more alone. Make the title clearly bigger than the body. Demote everything else, and delete what doesn't make the top three.

### 23. Default type

**Signal:** More common in real decks, so treat as a weak signal. 17% of AI slides vs 38% of real slides.

**The tell:** The same font at the same weight everywhere, usually Inter, Roboto or the system default. Or the opposite: ten different sizes in play across the deck, with emphasis applied in bold *and* color *and* a bigger size at once. One newer flourish to watch for: a title that switches to an italic serif or a different color for its last few words.

**Do this instead:** One typeface (your brand's, or a standard one like Arial, Calibri or Helvetica), regular and bold only. Three or four sizes (title, body, caption, and maybe one big number) used the same way on every slide. Pick one way to emphasize, bold or color, never both on the same word. Titles in one font, one weight, one color.

### 24. Floating cards and drop shadows

**Signal:** More common in real decks, so treat as a weak signal. 7% of AI slides vs 17% of real slides. Of slides that had cards.

**The tell:** Everything sits in a card with the same rounded corners and the same soft gray shadow, hovering over the background. Sometimes there's a card inside the card. It's the default look of the web component kits these tools learned from, and it reads as exactly that.

**Do this instead:** Flat. No drop shadows, no floating, no cards in cards. Most content doesn't need a container at all (see tell 18). If you need a table, use a plain table with thin horizontal lines.

### 25. Accent color everywhere

**Signal:** More common in real decks, so treat as a weak signal. 18% of AI slides vs 51% of real slides.

**The tell:** Every heading, icon, border and number is in the brand color, or each slide brings a new accent, so a two-color deck turns into a six-color one. When the accent is everywhere, it stops meaning anything.

**Do this instead:** Same rule as tell 3, applied strictly: the accent goes only on the one thing that matters on that slide, the key number or the line that proves the title. If you can't say why something is in the accent color, make it gray.

### 26. The new default palettes

**Signal:** Common in real decks too, so treat as a weak signal. 7% of AI slides vs 8% of real slides.

**The tell:** Purple isn't the only default anymore. Tell a tool "no purple" and it reaches for the next one: warm cream background with a serif title and a terracotta accent, or dark navy and near-black slides with one bright accent color, or dark backgrounds with blue-to-orange. Every one of them is a nice palette. The problem is that it's the same nice palette on everyone's deck.

**Do this instead:** Choose the palette on purpose. Use your brand colors if you have them. If you don't, give the tool a specific background (plain white is fine), one text color, one gray and one accent, and tell it not to improvise beyond them. A deliberate palette of three or four colors looks more designed than a default one.

### 27. Pills, badges and status dots

**Signal:** More common in real decks, so treat as a weak signal. 13% of AI slides vs 18% of real slides.

**The tell:** Little rounded lozenges everywhere: "Recommended," "High impact," "New." Colored dots before labels. Tags over cards. Decoration pretending to be information.

**Do this instead:** Write the word. If a status matters, put it in the table cell or the sentence. If it doesn't, cut it.

### 28. Dashboard stat tiles

**Signal:** Common in real decks too, so treat as a weak signal. 9% of AI slides vs 7% of real slides.

**The tell:** A row of four to six big-number tiles, each with a small label underneath, all the same size. It looks like an analytics screen, and that's the problem: a dashboard is built for monitoring, not for making a point. It gives six numbers equal weight and lets the audience guess which one matters. It's also where made-up numbers sneak in, because the tiles need filling (see tell 8).

**Do this instead:** Decide what the numbers need to prove, put that in the title, and show the one number that proves it large, or as a real chart. Put the rest in a table, or in the appendix.

### 29. Production slips

**Signal:** Strong signal. 30% of AI slides vs 7% of real slides. Seen across 12 of the 17 tools.

**The tell:** Text running into a chart, an image or other text. A label spilling out of its box or off the slide. Leftover template text: "Click to add title," "[Detail]," "xxx," "Series 1." A word split in half by wrapping. Numbers in the title that don't match the chart. These slips showed up on 30% of the AI slides and in 12 of the 17 tools, which makes it the most tool-independent tell in the comparison. Real decks slip too (7%), but far less, because someone checks them.

**Do this instead:** Be that someone. Look at every slide at full size before it goes out. Fix every overlap and overflow, replace every placeholder, and check that the numbers in the title match the numbers on the slide. Ask the tool to list any placeholder text it left, then check yourself anyway.

### 30. The takeaway box or bottom banner

**Signal:** Strong signal. 18% of AI slides vs 3% of real slides.

**The tell:** A panel labeled "Key takeaway," "So what," "Bottom line" or "Why this matters," or a filled color banner along the bottom of the slide holding a summary sentence. It restates what the slide should already say. 18% of AI slides had one, against 3% of real slides.

**Do this instead:** Put the takeaway in the title (tell 1), where people read first. If the slide still needs a so-what line, write it as plain text in the body, with no box, no fill and no label.

### 31. The full-height colored edge strip

**Signal:** Strong signal. 17% of AI slides vs 1% of real slides. Mostly from two tools.

**The tell:** A solid colored bar running down the left or right edge of the slide, most of its height, on every slide. It appeared on 17% of AI slides and on 1 real slide in 100. Most of the hits came from two tools, so it's a fingerprint more than a habit, but when you see it, it's a strong sign.

**Do this instead:** Leave the slide edge alone. The margins already frame the content. If your brand template has a fixed edge element, use it exactly as designed.

---

## The before-you-present checklist

Go through every slide. Every "no" is something to fix.

**Strongest AI signals first** (from the 100 vs 100 comparison):

- [ ] Does every slide start with its title, with nothing above it: no kicker, ALL-CAPS eyebrow, breadcrumb or pill?
- [ ] Zero production slips: no text overlapping or spilling out of its box, no leftover placeholder text, no words split by wrapping?
- [ ] Would I say these sentences out loud, with no colon-title or em-dash-pivot habit?
- [ ] No "key takeaway" box and no filled banner along the bottom?
- [ ] No full-height colored strip down the left or right edge?

**Some signal:**

- [ ] Do lists have as many items as the content needs, not groups of three by habit?
- [ ] No unlock / elevate / delve / leverage / seamless / game-changer?
- [ ] Is body text left-aligned, with centering only for short single items?
- [ ] No inflated significance ("pivotal," "a testament to," "plays a crucial role," "broader trend")? Does each slide say what happened and how big it was?

**Weak AI signals, still worth fixing:**

- [ ] Does every slide title state a takeaway in a full sentence?
- [ ] If I read only the titles, do I get the whole argument?
- [ ] Does each slide make one point?
- [ ] Does every number have a real source I could name?
- [ ] Are there zero invented stats, quotes or examples?
- [ ] No emoji bullets, no icons in circles, no decorative icons?
- [ ] No purple/violet glow, glassmorphism or gradient text?
- [ ] Am I using one accent color, and only to highlight what matters?
- [ ] Are there specific nouns (names, numbers, dates, places) on most slides?
- [ ] Do layouts vary with the content, with no symmetric three-box grids and no single template repeated on every slide?
- [ ] Do the images show the real thing (or is there no image at all)?
- [ ] Are bullet lists short, uneven and rare?
- [ ] Does each chart have a takeaway title and an annotation on the key point?
- [ ] No "experts say," "studies show" or "many believe" without a named source?
- [ ] Does the deck end on a decision or an ask, not a "challenges and future prospects" wrap-up?
- [ ] No "It's not just X, it's Y" or "not only X, but Y" lines?
- [ ] Zero rounded boxes or cards with a colored accent line on one side or the top?
- [ ] No short, thick accent bar or colored rule above, beside or under the title?
- [ ] Is the title-page subtitle a few words (or gone), not a full sentence?
- [ ] Does one element clearly win on each slide, with the title much bigger than the body?
- [ ] One typeface, regular and bold only, three or four sizes used the same way on every slide?
- [ ] No drop shadows, floating cards or cards inside cards?
- [ ] Did I choose the palette on purpose (brand colors, or a stated set), not a default cream-and-terracotta or dark-navy look?
- [ ] No pills, badges, chips or colored status dots?
- [ ] No rows of equal-sized stat tiles?

---

## The copy-paste prompt

Paste this into your AI tool's instructions if you don't want to load the whole file.

```text
When you build slides for me, follow these rules on every slide. Rules 1 to 5 cover the patterns that most often give AI slides away, so check those first.

1. Start every slide with its title. Put nothing above it: no kicker line, no small ALL-CAPS or letter-spaced eyebrow, no breadcrumb, no pill or tag.
2. Check every slide for production slips before you show it to me: text overlapping other text, a chart or an image; text running out of its box or off the slide; leftover placeholder text ("Click to add," [Detail], xxx, Series 1); words split by wrapping; title numbers that don't match the slide. Fix every one, and list any placeholder you couldn't fill.
3. Write in short, plain, active sentences I would actually say out loud. Vary sentence length. No colon titles ("Growth: The Path Forward") and no em-dash pivots.
4. No "Key takeaway," "So what" or "Bottom line" boxes, and no filled banner along the bottom. The takeaway goes in the title.
5. No colored strip or bar running down the left or right edge of the slide.
6. Don't group things in threes by habit ("fast, simple and powerful"). Use as many items as there really are.
7. Never use these words: unlock, elevate, delve, dive in, leverage, empower, harness, seamless, robust, game-changer, cutting-edge, transformative, synergy, journey.
8. No inflated significance: no "pivotal," "a testament to," "plays a crucial role," "marks a shift" or "part of a broader trend." State what actually happened and how big it was.
9. Left-align body text. Center only a single number, short quote or section break.
10. Titles are full-sentence takeaways that state the point (e.g. "Q3 revenue grew, but almost all of it came from two accounts"), never labels like "Overview" or "Key Insights."
11. One idea per slide. If a slide needs more than 3 short bullets, split it.
12. Use only data I give you. Never invent statistics, quotes, sources or examples. If something is missing, write [DATA NEEDED: ...] instead.
13. No emoji, no icons in circles, no decorative icons, no stock 3D shapes or abstract hero images. Only use images that show the actual subject.
14. Restrained palette: one background, one text color, one gray, one accent color used only to highlight the key point. No gradients, glows, glassmorphism or gradient text.
15. Use specific nouns: real names, numbers, dates, places, products.
16. Vary layouts to fit the content. Avoid symmetric three-box grids and identical slide templates.
17. Charts: takeaway title, minimal gridlines, gray for context, accent color for the point, a short annotation on what to notice.
18. Never write "It's not just X, it's Y" or "Not only X, but Y." Just say Y.
19. No vague attributions like "experts say," "studies show" or "many believe." Name the source or cut the claim.
20. Don't end with a "challenges and future prospects" wrap-up. End on the decision or the ask.
21. Never put content in rounded boxes or cards with a colored accent line on one side or the top. Separate ideas with whitespace and alignment, or a thin gray rule if they really need grouping.
22. No short, thick accent bar or colored rule above, beside or under the title.
23. On the title slide, keep any subtitle to a few words (audience, meeting, date) or leave it out. Never a full sentence.
24. Give every slide one dominant element (one number, chart or sentence). Make the title clearly bigger than the body and demote everything else.
25. Use one typeface, regular and bold only, in three or four sizes used the same way on every slide. Emphasize with bold or color, never both. No italic or differently colored words inside titles.
26. Keep everything flat: no drop shadows, floating cards, cards inside cards, pills, badges, chips or status dots.
27. If I haven't given you brand colors, choose a palette on purpose and tell me what you chose. Don't default to cream with a serif and terracotta, or dark navy or black with one bright accent.
28. Never show numbers as a row of equal stat tiles. Show the number that proves the title large, or as a chart, and put the rest in a table.

Before showing me the final deck, list the slide titles in order so I can check the storyline, then audit every slide against these rules, starting with rules 1 to 5, and fix anything that breaks them.
```

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## Sources

The writing tells (13 to 17) lean on Wikipedia's [Signs of AI writing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signs_of_AI_writing). Tells 18 to 21 are Paul Moss's own, from reviewing AI-built decks. Tells 29 to 31 and every signal rating come from Paul's comparison of 100 AI and 100 real slides (method in the results section). The other visual tells (22 to 28) come from the designers, deck-tool reviewers and practitioners below. A few of them sell design or deck tools, so take their fixes as opinions; we only used them for what they say gives a deck away.

- Analyst Academy: 100 AI vs 100 real slides (November 2026). AI slides from Paul Moss's comparison of 17 AI presentation tools; real slides from [SlideStart](https://www.slidestart.com)
- Dan Li, Plus AI: [How to Make AI-Generated Slides That Don't Look Like AI Slop](https://plusai.com/blog/how-to-make-ai-slides-that-dont-look-like-ai-slop/) (July 2026)
- Marcus Beale: [A designer's teardown of AI slides, and the fixes that actually move them](https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/a-designers-teardown-of-ai-slides-and-the-fixes-that-actually-move-them-7149203ed6ce) (Medium, July 2026)
- BetterPPT: [Why AI-Generated Presentations Have an "AI Smell"](https://betterppt.com/en/blog/why-ai-presentations-look-the-same) (October 2026)
- Warren Builds: [Avoid Visual AI Tells](https://skill-library.warrenbuilds.ai/skills/avoid-visual-ai-tells)
- Croissan Studio: [anti-AI-slop design rules](https://github.com/CroissanStudioDev/studio-identity/blob/main/agents/anti-ai-slop.md) (GitHub)
- TY Wang: [Reverse-Engineering the Claude Design Prompt](https://tywang.ai/en/writing/claude-design-four-skills)
- Superdesign: [Why AI Design Looks Generic](https://superdesign.dev/blog/why-ai-design-looks-generic) (2026)
- Joshua Snoddy: [Why Do AI-Generated Websites All Look the Same?](https://www.joshuasnoddy.com/blog/why-ai-websites-look-the-same/) (July 2026)
- Tech Arion: [Why AI Websites Look the Same](https://techarion.com/blog/why-ai-websites-look-the-same-how-to-make-claude-design-better) (October 2026)
- hankimis: [ai-design-tells](https://github.com/hankimis/ai-design-tells) (GitHub)
- Hallmark: [design gates](https://github.com/nutlope/hallmark) (GitHub)
- Anthropic: [Improving frontend design through Skills](https://claude.com/blog/improving-frontend-design-through-skills)
- Ken Imoto: [Anthropic frontend-design skill: #F4F1EA named](https://kenimoto.dev/blog/anthropic-frontend-design-skill-rewrite/) (June 2026)
- Reddit threads: r/powerpoint, [The "Tells" that shout "AI Made Me!"](https://www.reddit.com/r/powerpoint/comments/1vs6k9s/the_tells_that_shout_ai_made_me/) and [Is it just me or do all AI generated decks look exactly the same?](https://www.reddit.com/r/powerpoint/comments/1u3xxm9/is_it_just_me_or_do_all_ai_generated_decks_look/); r/ClaudeAI, [What makes slides feel AI-generated?](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1wrzzjv/what_makes_slides_feel_aigenerated/); r/ArtificialInteligence, [Can people actually tell when a deck came out of one of these presentation tools?](https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtificialInteligence/comments/1w540hq/can_people_actually_tell_when_a_deck_came_out_of/); r/SaaS, [How can I make my presentation visually compelling with AI](https://www.reddit.com/r/SaaS/comments/1rn0ch3/how_can_i_make_my_presentation_visually/)

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