SoftGist Rating

4.2

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Decktopus has the potential to become a great AI presentation maker. We were especially impressed with how the platform engages with you to try to figure out exactly what you want to create. 

There were also other redeeming features, including how well Decktopus can read and understand PDFs. The AI does a commendable job creating presentations from uploaded documents.

We rated Decktopus 4.2/5 because the platform still has a way to go before we can recommend it to users as a top choice. The AI Presentation Maker feature currently doesn’t make very good presentations. Decktopus also has limited themes, templates, and asset libraries, which can severely limit how well you can personalize the AI-generated presentations.

Best For

Creating presentations from PDF documents

Pricing

Start at $14.99/mo. or $9.99/mo. billed annually

Free Trial

No

Pros

• Can read PDF documents
• Easy to use
• Multiple export options
• Collaboration

Cons

• Can’t create presentations from a template
• The platform needs significant improvements
• No free trial

AI Features

4.2

AI Content Quality

4.2

Ease Of Use

4.6

Price

4.3

What Is Decktopus?

Decktopus is an AI presentation maker that lets you create presentations from scratch using AI. You can enter a text prompt or upload your document, and the AI will take care of everything else. This includes designing the deck and adding text content and images.

The platform also has a built-in image generator for creating custom AI images for your projects. You get an AI assistant that can suggest improvements for your presentations or generate relevant Q&As.

Decktopus has a drag-and-drop Editor that lets you move assets exactly where you want them in your presentations. The Editor also offers customization options, including changing themes, color palettes, text content, and more.

Decktopus also supports adding assets to your slides, including videos, links, line charts, and more.

Is Decktopus Right For You?

Decktopus may be right for the following types of users:

• You want to quickly convert your PDF documents into presentations
• You don’t want to get bogged down by too many customization options
• You want to export presentations in PPT and PDF formats
• You want to collaborate with others
• You want to add your own elements like links, custom images, logos, line graphs, etc. to presentations

However, Decktopus may not be the best choice for the following types of users:

• You want to test the platform for free before purchasing a subscription
• You want to create professional-quality presentations from scratch with AI
• You need to generate high-quality images for your presentations
• You need a platform with a large library of visual assets

Pros & Cons of Decktopus

Getting Started with Decktopus

To start using Decktopus, visit decktopus.com and click “Get Started.”

You have the option of signing up directly with your Google account. Alternatively, create your account with a name, email, and password.

You’ll land on the Dashboard where you can create your first project. This includes creating a presentation with AI or starting from scratch.

Let’s dive in and see what Decktopus has to offer!

AI Presentation Maker

One option for creating presentations in Decktopus is using a text prompt. It is the main selling point of AI presentation makers. All you need is a topic or description of your project and the AI does the hard work of designing decks, figuring out the layout, and adding text content and images.

You get a prompt box where you describe the presentation you want. There are also some example topics to browse through if you need inspiration.

We used a simple prompt, asking the AI to design a presentation on the “Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.”

The reason for the simple prompt was to test the AI’s understanding and creativity.

Decktopus doesn’t jump right into creating the presentation. Instead, it asks you to describe your audience and suggest relevant examples. It’s a good sign that the AI wants to deliver according to your expectations.

One of the things we noticed coming into creating this presentation is that Decktopus doesn’t offer a feature to refine your prompts. Tools like Gamma AI have this option, where the AI automatically rewrites your prompts to increase the chances of getting what you want.

It’s useful if you’re not accustomed to writing effective prompts. However, Decktopus makes up for this by engaging with you to determine the specific type of presentation you want.

For example, it’ll ask you to describe our aim. It’ll even offer suggestions to help you along. We also noticed that the AI wasn’t just putting words together in the way generative AI models do. Instead, it suggested sophisticated ideas that would make for an interesting presentation.

Decktopus also provides an outline before generating the slides. Again, this is a good thing to ensure the AI matches your expectations as closely as possible.

You can edit the outline by adding and removing topics to match your project requirements.

The only minor complaint is that Decktopus doesn’t let you rearrange the outline by dragging and dropping the topics in the order you want. It’s not a must-have feature, but it’s available in most presentation makers. It makes it easier to edit your outline.

Decktopus also provides template options before creating your presentations. It offered us some good options.

However, the template options were limited to just six, unlike tools like Slidesgo which offer thousands of templates across various categories. This is a significant issue if you want to design unique or creative presentations. Decktopus limits your creative options.

The AI took about one minute to generate our slide deck, which isn’t bad in terms of speed.

The presentation started with a strong introductory slide. It was engaging and set the tone of the presentation.

But, although Decktopus understood our topic, the entire presentation was underwhelming. The slides didn’t include any presentation-worthy information. Instead, the content reads like placeholder text.

The content on practically every slide was unusable. We’d have to add our content manually to use this presentation. And that defeats the purpose of an AI presentation maker that’s supposed to provide a first draft that you can build on.

We tried again with a different topic. This time asking Decktopus to create a presentation about coping with stress at the workplace. After going through the motions of picking an audience and approving the outline, the result was only minimally better than the previous attempt.

Although the AI covered some good topics, it didn’t provide enough content for an impactful or even helpful presentation.

The slides were mostly bullet points that didn’t add much value to the topic. It would have been better if the AI expanded these ideas in each slide. The images were also high-and-miss with this specific presentation (they were much better in the previous presentation).

For now, we are happy to recommend other AI presentation makers if you want to create presentations from scratch using AI. There are great options out there, including Slidesgo, Beautiful AI, and Gamma AI.

There is still hope for Decktopus, and we’d love to see the AI leverage its strengths. For example, the AI makes a commendable effort to learn about your idea in great detail. If fine-tuned, Decktopus could create presentations that closely match your expectations.

The AI also sometimes provides high-quality images. Even when the images aren’t the best, they are almost always on-topic. So with a little refinement, we can see Decktopus becoming a terrific tool for creating high-quality presentations.

Finally, we noted that the AI follows the traditional slide format, unlike Tome and other presentation makers that focus more on modern and flexible designs and layouts. So if you aren’t proficient with Google Slides or PowerPoint, and want to design traditional presentations without any manual design work, Decktopus might be a good option once all the issues are worked out.

Import Your PDF

Besides creating presentations from scratch with AI, Decktopus also lets you import PDF documents and the AI will create a presentation for you. It’s a useful feature if you already have content such as internal company documents or blog posts that you want to repurpose for presentations.

For this test, we uploaded a PDF document containing specific details, including names, numbers, and dates. The idea was to see if the AI could capture all this crucial information and add it to our presentation.

Just like with the AI Presentation Maker, we noticed that Decktopus makes an honest attempt at understanding your audience. And, based on the audience suggestions in our case, it was clear that Decktopus ‘read’ and understood the PDF contents.

Again, Decktopus asks you to choose an aim for the presentation. And, based on the suggested aims, it was clear that the AI understood the document's contents.

This time the result was much better than anything we created with the AI Presentation Maker. It seems that adding context and some training help to bring out the best of Decktopus.

The AI created a strong introductory slide. We like that Decktopus doesn’t get too fancy with its decks, which is true of some AI presentation makers.

Instead, Decktopus generates traditional professional slides without all the hoops you have to jump through with traditional tools like PowerPoint. For example, you don’t need to worry about creating visuals, adjusting layouts, or fine-tuning text formatting. Decktopus takes care of all that for you.

We were equally impressed by the AI’s ability to understand the PDF document. This sample slide talks about very specific information that was only available in the uploaded document.

The AI didn’t make up (‘hallucinate’) the information or get it from the internet. Instead, it referenced the uploaded document to get the correct information.

The AI’s ability to get the correct information was evident throughout the presentation. Here’s an excerpt from the document providing a bunch of information, including bullet points.

This Decktopus slide expressed the same ideas accurately. And we also noticed that the AI didn’t just copy the information verbatim. Instead, it figured out how to condense and express the ideas concisely.

Finally, we were impressed by the AI’s choice of images. Decktopus automatically added images to the slides without any additional input or prompting from us. More importantly, the images were consistently high-quality and relevant to our presentation topic.

We were overall happy with Decktopus' ability to create presentations from existing documents. The only potential issue is the limited template variety. You only get six options, and these are mostly geared towards creating professional presentations. This means you don’t have a lot of options for creating things like one-page sites, portfolios, or other creative projects.

Editor & AI Assistant

Decktopus has a built-in Editor to adjust and customize the generated presentations. There’s also an AI Assistant that provides tips for improving your presentations and suggests questions that your audience might ask based on your presentation.

As far as customization, Decktopus has a few options for personalizing your presentations. You can change the theme to suit your overall visual style. There aren’t too many options, but you get purpose-built themes for Formal, Minimalist, and Elegant presentations.

You can also change the font style. Again, there aren’t too many options. But Decktopus covers the popular font styles, especially if you’re mainly interested in creating professional presentations.

You can also add elements, including charts, tables, and forms. Not all presentation makers let you add these kinds of elements. For example, while you can embed line charts in your presentations in Gamma AI, you can’t create them inside the platform.

Unfortunately, Decktopus doesn’t have a built-in image library. So you’ll have to import most of your images from elsewhere.

However, there is an AI image generator that you can use to create images. But they aren’t the best quality. For this example, we asked the AI to generate an image of a company spokesman pitching a business idea to a room full of executives.

The image generator also doesn't let you choose different image styles (e.g., photorealistic, fantasy, or anime). You also can’t specify the number of images to generate at once. Or create variations of your generated images.

You’ll find the AI Assistant in Decktopus’ Editor. You can ask it to provide tips for improving your presentations, like we did in this example.

This is another one of the features where Decktopus reveals its potential. The AI provides personalized tips based on your presentation. You can tell the AI truly understands the presentation contents. It’ll even suggest delivery tips to help you express your ideas effectively.

It would be better if the AI provided tips for each slide, rather than the entire presentation. But this is still a useful feature if you need to bounce ideas for improving your presentation.

The AI Assistant also generates Q&As based on your presentation. These are questions that your audience might ask during the presentation. Decktopus will also provide answers to these potential questions.

The Q&As were good and showed a decent understanding of our document.

There were instances where the AI could have provided specific numbers that were available in the document. For example, with this question and answer.

Our document provided dates, statistics, and studies that the AI could have referenced.

Overall, the AI Assistant is a nice touch. It can provide some ideas and insights for improving your presentations. Although not perfect, the Q&A can offer insights into the kind of questions your audience may ask, allowing you to prepare accordingly.

As far as customization, you get basic options like adding elements, customizing fonts, and adjusting themes. These are limited customization options, with just a handful of themes, templates, and fonts to choose from. And, with no built-in image library, you get limited customization even for an AI presentation maker designed specifically for ease of use.

Pricing

Decktopus offers two pricing plans, including the Pro and Business plans. There’s technically a free plan to test the platform before purchasing a subscription. But the free plan only gives you 20 credits, which isn’t enough to generate even one presentation.

The Pro plan costs $14.99 per month with monthly billing or $9.99 per month with an annual subscription. You get 750 AI credits per month, PDF and PPT export, presentation analytics, and more.

The Business plan costs $49.99 per month billed monthly or $34.99 per month billed annually. You get 1000 AI credits per month, advance form response, webhook, and more.

Closing Notes on Decktopus AI

Decktopus shows real potential. The AI takes you through different steps so it can understand exactly the kind of presentation you want to create. But in our expert opinion reviewing and analyzing dozens of AI presentation makers, Decktopus isn’t quite there yet compared to similar tools.

There are limited customization options, including no built-in image library. The available AI image generator is basic. And there are very few themes, templates, and fonts to choose from. And, since the free trial doesn’t allow you to see how everything works, we’re inclined to suggest alternatives like Beautiful AI, Gamma, and Slidesgo.

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Della Yang

Della Yang is a marketing professional with a passion for the ever-changing digital landscape. She frequently writes tech news and reviews, sharing her knowledge and insights through blogs and various online platforms.