In short: Use AI for a rough first draft, then rewrite it in your own words with your own stories. Ask for an outline and two options for the opening, not a finished script. Read the output aloud, cut anything you would never say, and check every figure. AI is a supplementary tool.
AI is useful for the blank page. It is weak at the things that make a talk worth hearing: your experience, your specific examples and the way you put a sentence together. The skill is knowing which part to hand over.
Where AI helps
- Outlining a talk from a brief you have written yourself.
- Producing a rough first pass that you can argue with.
- Suggesting openings and the questions a sceptical listener might ask.
- Shortening a script you have already written, when your slot is cut at short notice.
- Checking the length of a script against your slot. Speaking pace varies, so time the draft aloud rather than trusting a word count.
Where it goes wrong
Generated scripts tend to open with a restatement of the topic, lean on superlatives, and string words together in threes. They also invent examples that sound plausible and are not true. The room notices the flatness even when it cannot name the cause.
Keep the stories yours
Present Yourself guidance is to use AI only as a supplementary tool, and to keep your own voice and stories. Write the stories from memory first, in rough notes or a voice memo. Then compare them with the draft. If the draft has a better sentence, borrow the sentence. Keep your story.
Steps
- Write your audience, length and three points in a short brief, in your own words.
- Ask for an outline and two options for the opening.
- Choose one opening. Write your story from memory, with the tool closed.
- Read the draft aloud. Mark every sentence you would not say to a friend.
- Turn the script into bullets, so you speak the points rather than read them.
- Rehearse, record, and listen back.
Checks before you use it
- Check every name, date and figure against a source you can open. An unsourced number from a tool is unconfirmed.
- Remove invented examples unless you can say where they came from, or label them as examples.
- Read it for the phrases you would never use. Those are the ones to rewrite.
- If the talk is for a client, a broadcaster or an event, ask what they expect you to say about how the content was prepared.
Common mistakes
- Reading the output from a teleprompter without rewriting it.
- Using AI to write the story you should tell in person.
- Letting the tool set the tone. Decide the tone first and check the draft against it.
For the writing side of a script, see writing for the ear.
Related guides
- Hook, Message, Recap, Call to action: the HMRC structure
- Fifty ways to open (hooks that work)
- How to end: bookends, loops, last lines
- Writing for the ear: short sentences, short words
- Words that cost you credibility: fluff, superlatives, -ly words, jargon
- All guides and tools
The picture at the top of this page is an illustration, not a photograph of a client or a real job.
Questions we get asked
Can I use AI to write a presentation script?
Yes, for an outline, a rough first pass and alternative openings. Keep the stories, the examples and the final wording in your own voice, and check every figure yourself.
How do I keep my voice when I use AI to write?
Write your stories from memory before you open the draft, then borrow sentences from the draft only where they are better than yours. Turn the final script into bullets so you speak it rather than read it.
Should I tell people I used AI for a talk?
Check what the organiser, client or broadcaster expects. If the script is for them, ask how they want AI use described before you deliver it.
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