Building a slide deck from scratch is one of those tasks that eats hours without adding much value. Three AI tools now promise to handle the first draft: Copilot in PowerPoint, Gemini in Google Slides and the standalone service Gamma. Each follows a different logic, and choosing the wrong one for your setup can waste more time than it saves. TechNews DevTop breaks down what each tool actually does, which subscription you need and where the limitations bite.
- Copilot builds whole decks: It generates a complete presentation from a prompt or a Word document and adapts it to your open template.
- Gemini works slide by slide: It creates individual slides, images and summaries inside Google Slides, using your current theme.
- Gamma lives outside the office suite: It produces full presentations and exports them to PowerPoint or PDF, but exports can drift from what you see in the editor.
Copilot in PowerPoint: a full deck from a single request
Copilot creates an entire presentation from a description or a file and fits it to the template you have open. According to Microsoft’s official guidance, updated in October 2026, the process is straightforward: open a new presentation, click the Copilot icon in the lower-right corner and describe what you need.
Copilot may ask follow-up questions before starting, covering the audience, the intended length, the template to use or the kind of images to include. You can answer or skip them. In organisations that have configured it, you can also select a Brand Kit containing logos, colours, typography and tone.
Microsoft’s advice for starting from a Word document delivers the best results:
- Use Word styles for headings and subheadings, since Copilot reads them to decide how to split content across slides.
- Include the images you want to see in the document, because Copilot will try to use them.
- If your company has a corporate template, open it before making any request so Copilot adopts its designs.
- Copilot performs best with Word documents under 24 MB.
Which plan do you need? On personal accounts, Microsoft’s licensing page states that an eligible subscription such as Microsoft 365 Personal, Family or Premium is required for Copilot in the apps, and that on desktop versions only the subscription holder can use it, not the members they share with. On work accounts, the label under your name tells you: with Copilot Chat (Basic) you do not get Copilot inside PowerPoint; with M365 Copilot (Basic) you get standard access in the apps; and with M365 Copilot (Premium) you get the full experience.
Can Gemini create a complete presentation in Google Slides?
Google’s user help describes mostly slide-by-slide work rather than a whole deck in one shot. The Gemini in Google Slides guide explains that you can generate new slides, images, presentation summaries and text. Each generated slide uses the current theme, and you insert them one at a time after reviewing them. Google’s features and plans page does mention a capability for creating complete presentations in Slides, but it does not include it in its per-plan tables, so that page does not clarify which subscription offers it.
The most useful part of Gemini in Slides is that it can read your Drive files: type a request with @ and the document name, and it generates the slide from that file. You can then check which files it used in the sources section. It also lets you apply the style of another presentation as a reference.
Google documents three limitations:
- The conversation history with Gemini is lost if you reload the browser, close the presentation or lose your connection. Insert whatever you need before closing.
- Generated images are for use inside Google Slides only.
- Gemini conversations in Slides are not saved in the Gemini Apps Activity.
Which plan do you need? According to Google’s table as of October 2026, generating and editing slides is available in Google AI Pro and Ultra for personal accounts, and in Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus for Workspace. Users must be over 18. For an assistant that always repeats the same format, Slides supports Gems, Google’s take on custom assistants.
Gamma: full presentations outside the office suite
Gamma generates presentations, documents and websites from a prompt and runs on a credit system. Its help centre details the plans, which as of October 2026 are as follows: the Free tier gives 400 credits at sign-up that do not renew, up to 10 slides per request and a Gamma watermark on exports. Plus offers 1,000 credits per month, Pro 4,000 and Ultra 20,000, all with up to 100 slides per request and no watermark.
Credits are spent per slide and per image, and also when you ask the AI for changes. According to Gamma’s explanation of credits, if the AI completes the action you are charged even if you do not like the result; manual corrections cost nothing. Subscriptions are per user.
Export is both its strength and its weakness. Gamma exports to PDF, PNG and PowerPoint, and to Google Slides by uploading the PowerPoint file. But its own help acknowledges that the result may differ from what you see in the editor, that Google Slides changes the file’s fonts and that very long presentations of more than 150 slides may fail to export. On the free plan, exported PDFs and PowerPoint files also carry Gamma’s branding.
What none of the three solves for you
Watch out for privacy: on Gamma, individual plans (Free, Plus, Pro and Ultra) have content used to train its models enabled by default, according to its data controls page. You can switch it off in Settings under the Data Controls tab. On Business, Enterprise and Teams plans it is always disabled. If you are uploading the quarter’s commercial strategy, check that setting first.
The other issue is generated slide images. Who owns those images is not a trivial question, and it deserves careful attention before you publish anything externally.
The bottom line is that all three tools handle well the part that should take the least time: layout. The draft comes out fast and looks polished, and that is precisely the risk. A presentation generated in two minutes looks finished, even when the data has not been verified and the argument is whatever the AI assumed. If your company already pays for Microsoft 365 with Copilot or Workspace with Gemini, start there: the file stays in your template and your cloud. Gamma makes sense when design matters more than compatibility, and only if someone reviews the exported PowerPoint before it is projected in front of a client.