'Your deck should be a love letter to your idea, your business and your audience'
September 18th, 2025
Interview with Dagobert Köhlinger, Professional Presentation Designer
Dagobert Köhlinger creates presentations for a living – he's the guy behind the screen who transforms broad messages into convincing arguments for board meetings, funding rounds, or keynote speeches.
The perfect person to ask to outline the state of presentation AI and how to make your pitch land.
Of course, a pro like him has a slightly different demand for presentation AI tools than most of our SME audience. After all, this man has created slide decks for FALKE, Axel Springer, CLAAS, Humboldt University in Berlin ... across numerous projects. But who would be closer to the pulse of time than Dagobert? And since we are big on presentation AI comparisons and always look for new AI tools, let’s listen in to his best presentation tips, shall we?
What do you do?
I help to build better presentations for better results. A presentation can make or break an idea – a weak presentation can even bury the best one alive. Yet while many invest heavily in their idea, strategy or product, few give the same attention to how it’s presented.
My take: Invest as heavily in your presentation as you did in your vision – it’s the last mile. Only great presentations open doors and close deals – they are the (secret) sauce to success. So if you’ve got a great idea, an important message or a big announcement – I am happy to help to make sure it lands.
What presentation tips do you have for people starting out with AI?
The first thing that comes to mind is the old rule for briefings: “shit in, shit out.” The same goes for
prompting. Even with today’s presentation AI tools, you still need a clear understanding of the context if you want to
create a deck that conveys your message clearly, convincingly, and compellingly – and drives
the impact you’re after.
So when prompting, precision matters. More input isn’t better – better input is. Keep a few things in mind: Why are you presenting? What outcome do you want? What’s the core message, the supporting arguments, and the key takeaways? What audience are you speaking to – colleagues, investors, C-level, employees?
What do they already know? How do they see the topic? Why should they care? What should stick in their minds? And most importantly: What action do you want them to take?
That’s quite some effort, but it will also help you find a matching storyline for your presentation.
Investors need a different storyline than customers, and employees need yet another one.
What's your personal favorite hack for presentation design?
I’d call it an old-school–new-school approach: form follows function with audience centricity. These days, anyone can generate an eye-catching title and slides based on full-size visuals in seconds – thanks to AI. But that alone doesn’t make an effective presentation and deck design. What really matters is design that helps you deliver your message and give a killer presentation.
Maybe a sticky navigation makes sense – maybe not. Maybe key takeaways deserve a fixed spot on every slide – maybe not. Maybe it makes sense to establish some kind of color code – maybe not ... you understand where I'm going.
The key is to structure your slides visually with your audience in mind. My tip: start with a grid. Divide your slide into sections, cluster related information, indicate importance through hierarchy – in short: organize the info-pieces on the slide.
What clients or projects are you especially proud of?
Over the years, across both agency and consulting settings, I’ve worked with leading corporations and major brands on a wide range of projects. I’ve created pitch decks, strategy rollouts, buy-in and budget presentations, and even large-scale PowerPoint masters.
Most clients know what they want, but not always what they need. I’m proud of the decks that were taken to a whole new level – where clients came in with a pile of input or a “proof of work,” and I was able to cut through the noise, restructure it, and make it truly meaningful and outcome-focused. The input is just the start; the true value comes from what you make of it.
Clients often showcase effort and reasoning. Understandable, but audiences don’t need a summary – they need synthesis – the "so what". Outcome-focused clients, who are willing to embrace changes, additions, and adjustments, are the ones who end up with strong decks and achieve their goals.
The Interview
Can you also share tips for creating presentations that are especially convincing to the listener?
First thing: relevance is the key – only present what matters to your audience.
Second thing: you can’t talk people into something – they have to convince themselves.
So check: is this really the moment to present? Do you have a point? You need to be able to prove that point. You need to know why your audience should care and what you want them to do with it afterward. It’s all about the outcome – reverse engineering. You want them to resonate with your message and move from A to B. In short: after the presentation, things shouldn’t be the same as they were before – otherwise, the presentation was pointless.
That’s why I spend a lot of time thinking about the audience’s state of mind. What might they ask? What objections could arise? You can also ask some of your most critical colleagues to act as a “murder board.” If you don’t have access to one, AI tools like yoodli.ai can simulate an audience – for example, a numbers-driven CEO or a skeptical employee. They’ll ask follow-up questions, and those questions are pure gold: they reveal weak points so you can address them directly in your deck.
Do you use psychology when creating your presentations?
Yes, in a way. For instance, you can pitch almost anything to anyone if you manage to trigger FOMO, clearly frame the potential gain or loss (keeping in mind that most people weigh losses more heavily – “loss aversion”), and prove that you’re the right partner.
At its core, sales comes down to this: Fail to define the problem and get your message across. Fail to sell the need, and you fail to sell your solution (service or product). And so on.
In general, effective decks start with understanding both the presenter’s and the audience’s perspectives. The presenter brings their own viewpoint and focus, while the audience comes with expectations.
Bridging the gap between sender and receiver paves the way for engagement and impactful presentations. Aristotle claimed that to persuade, you need three types of argument:
ethical appeal (ethos)
emotional appeal (pathos)
and logical appeal (logos)
Facts alone aren’t enough – to break it down:
ETHOS (Credibility): Build trust and connect through shared values and experiences. Show expertise and be confident.
PATHOS (Emotion): Engage your audience’s emotions to leave a lasting impression. Evoke the right feelings to amplify your message – emotion drives action.
LOGOS (Logic): Provide a clear framework for your audience to follow. Keep points concise, support them with evidence, examples, and visuals, and make complex ideas understandable.
Aim for clarity, not simplicity.
What's your workflow when creating a presentation design?
When I sit down to design, I follow my “form follows function with audience centricity” approach. Once I’m clear on the context, I set up the grid.
Next, I choose fonts or font combinations. (Tip: it’s the similarities, not the differences, that cause problems when mixing fonts.) Defining hierarchy and sizes. From there, I create templates for the slide types I’ll need – for example: Set-Up, Comparison, Transition, and Key Takeaways. I also establish a color palette – primary, secondary, and signal colors – and ensure the slides work in both light and dark modes.
As a final step, I test it by building one of the more difficult slides in the deck – e.g. a content-heavy process. Not in full detail, but enough to see if the system holds up. If it works there, it will work everywhere.
How do you think presentation AI and design will evolve?
I think AI will show up in many ways. For designers, the question will always be: what do I do myself, and what do I hand over to AI? You can call it the “Art of Splitting.”
AI will push great designers to raise the bar and help good designers work faster. For those without a design background, it will at least get them to something decent. As Nick Law (Creative Chairperson at Accenture Song) once said, “Mediocrity is now free.”
One of the biggest shifts will happen in day-to-day presentations. Once a strong master with a range of templates is in place, AI will allow employees to assemble clean, on-brand decks for meetings in minutes. That’s both a huge time- and money-saver.
What's your favorite presentation design tool?
At the moment, I’m not really a fan of the “full service AI slide generators” – they’re not quite there yet.
But I can definitely see progress! Someone even created a Claude-combined-with-Canva workflow, and that looks much better than most of what I’ve seen by the big players so far.
That said, there are some AI tools I really like:
Topaz.ai – for image and video upscaling
Napkin.ai – to turn text into visuals
Yoodli.ai – for interactive presentation roleplays
ChatGPT – as a sparring partner for getting past the blank page, re-writing texts and proofreading.
What will AI never replace in presentations?
There’s still no shortcut to a truly great presentation. AI can automate or speed up tasks, but it cannot replace your experience, judgment, or taste. True expertise is needed to evaluate, refine, and perfect its output. Do not let your deck let you down – your deck should be a love letter to your idea, your business and your audience.
AI is here to take part but not to take over.
Continue Reading:
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About the interview series:
‘Spilling the digital beans on AI’ allows you to listen in on CEOs building AI tools and learn from AI enthusiasts who are already leveraging the technology every day.
Whether you are looking for tips using AI or want to take a glimpse into the future of AI with us, get the popcorn out because we translate the technical chit-chat into a language we all understand.