This week has been bonkers. School holidays, work, and preparing for our trip to Gold Coast then New Zealand. The best part so far has been when Grandma took the kids for a few nights which is always a treat. The toughest part is probably right now when I’m trying to write my blog whilst putting the finishing touches on my presentation for New Zealand which I desperately want to finish before going on holiday. It’s not due till October 1st but I’m coming home from that day and really don’t want to be thinking about it while I’m away.

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I’m nearly there. It’s been a fun presentation to bring together since I’ve never done a talk like this before. I wrote my pitch to PSANZ (Professional Speakers Association New Zealand) in a flurry so had to double check what I’d put my hand up to speak about. Luckily my pitch was simple: 

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Authenticity is a professional speaker's biggest asset and it's being slowly eroded by AI as more and more marketing material starts to look the same.  While AI might make something look polished - it doesn't look ’real’ and audiences are more weary of AI created content than ever before. Even if it's based on your own content, there is a sameness that diminishes your message and therefore, your expertise. 

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Not everyone is made to be a graphic designer - in fact, it's one of the most outsourced skills for professional speakers. What I’m highlighting in my 25 minute talk is that there are some cool and creative ways to connect with your audience that might be more achievable than you think. It's about having your audiences clearly defined, locked in and creating a brand identity that uniquely represents you while attracting all of your target audiences. 

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Three takeaways

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• Meeting your audience where they’re at. Designing for different audiences while keeping your soul intact.
• Authenticity. Coming of beige - AI might be making it quick but it’s also making it boring.
• Clarity is key. How to design a slide deck that makes you look awesome and doesn't send your audience to sleep.

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The idea for this talk evolved from my experience at the Global Speakers Summit in Cairns earlier this year. Over the course of the event I watched 10’s of speakers present on a huge variety of topics. It's easy to compare sessions when you line them up in a row and what I found was that I was leaving most of them with an A5 flyer. I ended up with a handful of them which automatically made them all feel the same. None of the collateral that speakers were giving out was particularly awesome which was surprising because the speakers were. There were some phenomenal speakers that had very ho-hum slides which I reflected on at the time. 

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When PSANZ put out a call to speakers for this year's TrailBlazers Convention it felt like the perfect opportunity to bring my experience as a designer to the world of speaking. It always helps to be useful if you’re trying to break into an industry and while I am new to speaking, I was an old hat at design. Or at least I can see some relatively easy enhancements  speakers can bring to their presentations. 

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At first glance it appears that AI, or VA’s using AI, are responsible for the gentrification of speaker slide decks. Everything is just perfect. Perfection used to be the positive outcome of years of craftsmanship and mastery but now it's been hijacked by AI who nails it in 18 seconds. Prefect now feels insincere and disposable.  

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I asked AI why it thinks that its a problem that Professional speakers use AI and this is what it gave me: 

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They came for you, not the algorithm

People pay to hear your voice, your stories, your screw-ups. When AI writes the talk, the audience gets a polished ghost of someone they never bought a ticket to see.

AI is the assistant, not the voice

It should sharpen your thinking, not replace it. The moment it starts deciding what you mean, you’ve stopped being the speaker.

Polish flattens trust

A perfectly structured talk with no rough edges feels manufactured. Audiences lean in when something feels lived-in, not assembled.

People crave imperfection

The stumble, the aside, the unscripted moment — that’s where connection happens. AI optimises those moments away.

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Couldn’t have said it better myself which is the problem. I also thought it was interesting that AI thought of itself as a polished ghost. AI is really good at making a few bullet points sound great. For anyone who codes, it’s an absolute gamer changer reducing turnaround time from weeks to hours. It does all sorts of incredible jobs that humans no longer need to do but it also can’t be trusted and may eventually try to kill us. 

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For professional speakers who can be paid significant amounts to be on stage, having a massive billboard for AI on the screen behind you dilutes your message and lessens your impact. While people understand how convenient it is, we can't help but feel disconnected. Knowing this, and while trying to prove my point, most of my presentation is hand written slides that I’ve scanned in. They’re not straight and the letters are a little wonky but it has undoubtedly been made by me. The speaker. I’ve had lots of conversations with people recently about sharing the creative process as a way to prove that something is human made. I’ve been doing it with my book, sharing 100 videos in 100 days of the writing process. A colleague at work has been making a computer game where they have been screen recording major developments so that he can show how the game was made. I had a chat with my hairdresser who said that she is fed up with people coming in with AI haircuts which are impossible to achieve because they don’t take into account the actual structure of the human head!

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I’m excited about giving my talk in NZ. It will be my first official talk as a professional speaker and the start of an exciting, new trajectory in my career. I have to start with how I intend to continue which means I’ve got to take it easy, don’t over think it and just know that what happens on the day is always going to be good news or a good story.

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