How to Write Effective Briefs for AI Slide Generation

The quality of your SlideForge output depends almost entirely on the quality of your brief. A good brief produces a polished slide in one shot. A vague brief wastes iterations.

The #1 Mistake: Being Vague

Bad: "Make a slide about our revenue."

Good: "KPI dashboard: Revenue $12.4M (+18% YoY), New Clients 847 (+23%), Gross Margin 71% (-2pp), NPS 4.6 (+0.3). Kicker: Q1 2026 REVIEW."

5 Rules

1. Include actual data — never "include relevant metrics." The engine doesn't know your metrics.
2. Name the slide type — "SWOT analysis", "2x2 matrix", "timeline with 5 milestones"
3. Describe the visual structure — "3-column comparison table, highlight column 2 as recommended"
4. Specify chrome — title, kicker, footer, page number, source attribution
5. Use iteration for refinement, not generation — get structure right first, then iterate on details ($0.10 vs $0.20)

Brief Templates

KPI Dashboard:
"KPI dashboard: [Metric1] [Value] ([Trend]), [Metric2] [Value] ([Trend]). Kicker: [SECTION]."

Comparison Table:
"3-column comparison. Columns: [A], [B], [C]. Rows: [Feature1], [Feature2]. Use checkmarks. Highlight [B] as recommended."

Timeline:
"Horizontal timeline with [N] milestones: [Date1]: [Event1], [Date2]: [Event2]. Highlight [Date2] as current."

Full guide with more templates | Try in Playground

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Originally published at slideforge.dev