September 18, 2025 • 21 mins
➡ Upgrade your presentations with Gamma, the best AI presentation maker: https://gamma.app
In this conversation, I speak with Grant, co-founder of Gamma, about how their platform is transforming presentations and idea-sharing. Instead of starting with slides, Gamma helps you focus on the story first—then builds the visuals, structure, and delivery around it using AI.
We talk about:
From Slides to Stories
Why presentations should begin with narrative flow and core ideas, not pre-existing slide templates. Gamma enables creators to design around the message rather than being trapped by the format.
AI as Your Presentation Partner
How Gamma acts like a personal design expert—adjusting layouts, visuals, and style in real time—similar to having a world-class presentation coach and designer by your side.
Idea Propagation Beyond Slides
Why Gamma isn’t just about “slides,” but about propagating ideas in the right medium: presentations, video overlays, mobile-first content, or even context-based imagery and clips.
The Future of Gamma
Where the platform is headed in the next few years, and how AI-driven storytelling will redefine the way we share ideas across industries.
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Chapters:
00:00 – Introduction to Unsupervised Learning
00:17 – Welcome Grant and Gamma’s Background
01:31 – AI Trends Driving Presentation Innovation
03:20 – Story First: Rethinking Workflow Beyond Slides
04:29 – Building Narrative Flow Before Design
07:42 – Gamma as an AI Presentation Partner
09:43 – What Gamma Does Differently from Other Tools
12:27 – Idea Propagation: Matching Message, Medium, and Audience
13:23 – Enhancing Presentations with Images, Clips, and Context
15:15 – Current Graphics and Animation Options
17:03 – Most Popular and Favorite Features in Gamma
18:05 – What’s Coming Soon in Gamma
19:08 – The Future of Idea Propagation with AI
20:46 – Where to Learn More About Gamma
21:21 – Closing Thoughts
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:00):
Unsupervised Learning is a podcast about trends and ideas in cybersecurity,
national security, AI, technology and society, and how best to
upgrade ourselves to be ready for what's coming. All right,
welcome to unsupervised learning.
S2 (00:19):
Hey, thanks for having me.
S1 (00:22):
Cool. So, um, I've heard a lot about your product.
I've seen a couple glimpses of it, um, in screenshots
and people talking about it on social media. I think
I might have messed around with it just slightly, a
little bit a couple of times, but I really want
to kind of move my whole workflow to kind of
using it. Can you just give some background on yourself
(00:43):
and what the what the product and company is?
S2 (00:45):
Yeah, definitely. So gamma is uh, you can think of
it as building the anti PowerPoint. So slides as a format.
I've been around for almost 40 years. We've all used
it since we were kids. Uh, require a ton of
formatting designing, aligning of boxes. And we wanted to kind
of reimagine how people share and present their ideas from
(01:06):
the ground up. So we started again a little bit
over four years ago. The idea was really to kind
of fundamentally rethink all the building blocks and then, of course,
integrate AI deeply into the entire creation flow so that you,
as someone that may not have design skills or resources,
can work with gamma as if you have like an
expert design partner sitting right next to you, helping you
guide the entire creation flow along the way.
S1 (01:31):
Yeah, that makes sense. Are you seeing the whole AI
thing kind of pushing a desire for this more? Um,
or is it just that it's enabling the the product
to be better? Like, um, what sort of trends are
you seeing, like pushing in this direction?
S2 (01:47):
Yeah, definitely. I think for many people it's rewiring how they,
you know, their relationship with technology. So in the past,
when you go into a tool like PowerPoint or Google Slides,
you as the creator need to do all the heavy lifting.
You start with a blank slide, right? And you're going
in and thinking about, you know, how do I create
the right layout? How do I express my ideas the
(02:08):
right way, such that the person on the receiving end
has the best chance of understanding what's in my head? Um,
and with gamma, we try to really help pave a
much more, uh, fun and interesting path so that you're not, uh,
you know, left to figure it out all on your own.
We can present you a ton of different design options.
We can help you craft a more compelling narrative story
(02:29):
arc to your presentation. We can help find all the
right assets to complement what you are trying to present.
So whether that's text, images, uh, diagrams, visuals, um, all
of that should really help you put your best foot
forward without you having to boil the ocean to find
the perfect visual. Um, so in that sense, you know,
people can go in. It feels a lot more effortless
(02:50):
to kind of create content. It feels a lot less
daunting and in many cases, much more fun to go
into a tool like gamma versus the incumbent tools.
S1 (02:58):
Yeah, that makes sense. So, um, I'm going to tell
you what my workflow is, and I want to see how, uh,
how close we can get there with, uh, the product.
So the way I've been thinking about this, um, because
I've done presentations for so long, uh, just having been
in the industry for so long. Right. And I would
say that I normally been kind of bad at it. Um,
(03:21):
I'm getting better more recently because I'm focusing more on, like,
the arc of the story. Right? Um, and I kind
of use, uh, Ted as one of my pinnacles, um,
because usually it's just like an image in the background,
and the person is talking through the story. Right? And
then the image is just like. And sometimes there's text
on it, but mostly it's just like an image that's
(03:42):
supporting it. So what I've taken to do now is
essentially I, I just basically rant the whole thing, uh,
describing the flow start to finish. What is the story
that I want to tell? And what I've found is that, um,
this works way better than starting with slides. If I
start with slides, uh, either if I think of it's
(04:05):
a cool template or I had a couple of slides.
What I found is it's really it's almost impossible to
break out of your slides 100%. And what you end
up doing is you end up like trying to add
a slide to work with the one that you already have.
So you're like, well, what should go before it? What
should come after it, right? When in fact we should
(04:26):
be thinking nothing about slides whatsoever. Discard all of this.
Get the flow and the story and like, almost like
the script, even if you're not going to actually read it. Um,
which most people don't. But get that working perfectly then
make the slides. So, um, I think I saw in
(04:46):
the product somewhere there was like a, a prompt area
or something, right? Um, but is it possible to basically
give either almost there or like a mostly there or
even partially there arc and then say, you know, build
this out and then I need this much supporting text
and I need these types of graphics.
S2 (05:07):
Yes. Yes, definitely. So what you're describing, I think, is,
is a very sort of natural way people would love
to build, to craft their presentations as they could. And
we do see a lot of users now kind of
changing their workflow from maybe what they had done in
the past. And so one is, yeah, maybe even going
into a ChatGPT like tool where you can riff on,
you know, that, that a little bit, you start with
(05:29):
a it could be even just like you're recording and
you're kind of you take the transcript, the initial more
raw transcript than you use ChatGPT to refine it a
little bit more, maybe ask it questions around, like, you know,
what am I missing here? Or like, how could I
make my story even more impactful or more engaging? Or
how do I open with a stronger hook or a
stronger opening? And then you get that to a good
place you might have, like, now, you know, pretty big
(05:52):
wall of text. You can copy and paste that the
entire thing directly into gamma and then say, hey, you know,
I'm trying to take this and create, you know, a
ten slide deck that's much more visual, gives me a
complimentary images and still allows me to hit my main points. And,
and then gamma can do that for you. Um, you
can also just, you know, take even the raw input
(06:13):
like you had mentioned. Like maybe not. You can actually
skip it altogether. You actually just go directly into gamma
and say, hey, this is raw input. I need it
to be made for keynote address. I'm presenting to, you know,
some technical audience and how do I now take that.
And so you can describe what you need. Gamma similarly
can kind of walk you through it. That will get
(06:34):
you kind of the first draft. And then we also
now have the ability you can then continue to chat
with AI to say, hey, okay, first draft is pretty good,
but you know what? The theme we selected doesn't quite
have the right look and feel. So why don't we
go with something completely different? I actually want something a
little bit more dark and minimalistic, minimalist, and you know,
can you kind of choose something, uh, something else. And
(06:54):
gamma can find you a different sort of vibe to
go with. Then you might also say, hey, you know what? Um,
there's this one slide. I really liked the layout of this.
Let's just actually replace all the other supporting slides with
the same layout, because this one is, like really effective and,
and kind of, uh, you know, top to bottom, just
completely revamped the, you know, the deck based on some input.
You can similarly kind of upload screenshots or images or
(07:17):
like other supporting information and say, actually, I need an
additional slide on this. Can you now create, you know,
keep the rest of the content? I want to now
build on this because then now let's start riffing. And
this is the analogy of like having like an expert
design partner sitting next to you. It's as if you're
you're a person sitting next to you is that expert
presentation designer. And you're like, okay, this first draft is okay,
(07:37):
but I want to keep riffing, tell me what you need,
and we're going to get you to the right place.
S1 (07:43):
Yeah, yeah. That last piece, that's exactly what came to
mind while you were finishing that. Um, yeah. So this
is a big difference. This is a big difference. As
opposed to like, okay, this is a website that you
go to, and it's a website that is basically a
presentation tool and you can type stuff in. It's a
(08:04):
completely different thing to be like it's it's basically an agent.
Gamma is a website agent that you talk to. And
maybe with the analogy of like, um, started to be
doing a product design and marketing with you, but um,
but um, it's like, okay, if you are a super
(08:25):
high level, uh, CEO or CTO or whatever, you generally
have a presentation person, right? And this is a superpower
that you have because they know things about you. They
know the company. They're also design experts. Totally. So they're
literally just looking at the screen as it gets updated
and saying, no, more like this, less of this, more
(08:48):
of that. Right. Yeah. Let's, um, let's text. They're actually
we want this image to be a little more, you know,
edgy or whatever. And then, uh, he or she is, like,
doing the magic. And like, that is. That's really where
we want to be at.
S2 (09:03):
Totally. Yeah. Most of us, to your point, do not
have that person. Right. Like if you are an executive
of a company, you might have one. You might actually
have a team of people helping you with that. And like, uh,
they are proactively both suggesting ideas, but it can also
just really quickly close the feedback loop. If you have
something you want to change or something just doesn't feel right,
they can give you five more ideas and then you
(09:24):
just keep riffing, right? And we yeah, dude, the average person,
because they don't have that they get stuck in this very,
you know, rudimentary stage of like slide creation. And we
want to help uplevel everybody so that they have access
to the exact same expertise that, that anybody might have
if they are an executive of a much larger company.
S1 (09:44):
So what do you feel like you guys are doing
better than, um, other people? Because I'm sure there's other
people sort of moving in this direction. Um, what do
you feel like you guys get that they don't, or
the industry in general doesn't get about presentations.
S2 (09:59):
Yeah, there's a few things. I mean, for one, you know,
this is our sole focus. I think there's a lot
of tools out there that are trying to do many
things all at once, and we're trying to do this
one thing really great. And so deeply understanding customers pain
points where we can really help them and go deep
on that. And obviously, there's a ton of experimentation and
working closely with those users to really kind of iterate
(10:21):
a ton over time. So that's something, you know, we've
been doing it for already four plus years. We intend
to be doing it for a very, very long time.
And and it's a space that we're, we're very passionate about. Um,
the second thing is, you know, we are trying to
acknowledge that, um, presentations as, as a format probably needs
a bit of, uh, you know, rethinking or reimagining. I mentioned,
(10:41):
you know, we, uh, started off in thinking about, okay,
slides as a format have been around for almost 40 years,
16 by nine, sort of, you know, fixed an aspect ratio.
Great for Or presenting. You know, when everyone's sitting in
the same room staring at the same projector or projection
screen or, um, you know, I need to print something
on a piece of paper. But what that doesn't sort
(11:02):
of acknowledge is like, a lot of what we are
doing today is like either presenting over screen share or
I want to send something to somebody and they are
going to open it on their own phone. And so
how do you create something that acknowledges where kind of
work is already shifting and acknowledge or embrace all the
sort of goodness that, you know, modern web technology already offers,
the browser and everything else. And so, um, we want
(11:25):
to be able to enable people not only just to
create presentations, but create presentations of the future, which is
mobile friendly by default, interactive, multimedia rich, easily shareable, all
these things that we think modern tools should enable. And
so gamma enables, you know, not just the creation of
presentations but modern presentations. And with that, we also have
(11:47):
a medium that's much more malleable. So if you are
starting off with something that is intended to be more presentational.
What if you also wanted to create an highly engaging
document that can also be passed around as a proposal?
Or what if you want to take the exact same
content and use it for social media and have social
assets that are really made for social sharing? Or what
(12:07):
if you want to take the exact same content and
create microsites, websites, things that are intended to be interactive? Um,
and so we want, you know, all that to be
in the same place so that a user doesn't need
to learn ten different tools. They can use gamma. Gamma
can help shape and mold that content into whatever format
it needs to be. And you're off to the races.
S1 (12:27):
Okay. You're you're getting me excited here. Okay. So I'm
pulling a layer back from presentations. It's about idea propagation. Totally.
And then essentially, like the tool needs to figure out okay, um,
what is the core idea. Does that have like a
native presentation style that that suits it best. Right. Then
(12:49):
it's like, okay, who is the presenter? Then it's like,
who are the receivers of the presentation? And then what?
Like to your point, what medium are they on? Is
it zoom? Are they in the room? Is it a
giant screen? Is it a tiny screen? Right. Is it
a mobile? Uh, are they only on mobile? Right. And
then all of those context pieces actually would change that,
(13:11):
that that is super interesting. Um, you know, what I've
been experimenting with and I think is really cool is, um,
sometimes I think I've seen Dwarkesh do this a couple
of times. Um, so he'll just be talking kind of
like what we're going to do in this video here. Actually,
you're already seeing in this video is, um, you'll just
(13:31):
be talking and over the top of it, like an
image or especially a video plays. Right? And it's just
like this little clip. And it could just be like
a weather pattern. We're talking about chaos. And you see
like this weather pattern thing. Right? Right. And it's like, oh,
somehow that little weather pattern thing, when Grant said Chaos.
(13:52):
It just made it click that much more. Yeah, and
it's like, I think that is really, really cool. Um, uh,
are there any features now or any, um, things coming
soon that are similar to that where it could be
like maybe not necessarily a slide with text with an image,
but more so. Okay. This just calls for an image
(14:12):
by itself, and maybe it calls for an image with text,
or maybe it calls for a short little video clip.
S2 (14:19):
Yeah, yeah. They're gonna there's gonna be much more of that,
I think. Yeah. To your point around, you know, we're
all visual beings and, uh, the ability to tie concepts
ideas to something visual just makes it way easier to
remember and also way easier to share and, you know, spread. Um,
and so, yeah, we want to lean into, um, the
ability to create all sorts of outputs. Video, audio will
(14:42):
certainly be areas we continue to explore. Um, and then, uh, today,
you know, a lot of our, uh, the content that
comes out still is pretty, you know, can be text
heavy or has like a text leaning. You know, aspect
of it. We want to build to also embrace like
just really visual cinematic content. And so we have a
lot of cool stuff coming here in the near term,
(15:03):
which will kind of unlock much more of that sort
of creativity, where maybe it isn't a bunch of words,
but it's actually just like this perfect visual that drives
that point. About your point home. We want to be
able to support that as well.
S1 (15:16):
Yeah. And what's cool about that is it all starts
with the very first piece, which, um, is in the
product now, which is what do you want to say?
It starts with that hook and narrative and everything can
build off of there. Um, what are the current sort of, um,
graphical options, uh, that we have, like in terms of like, uh, doing,
(15:37):
you know, animations or like, uh, picking a perfect, uh,
graphic for a particular slide or whatever.
S2 (15:43):
Yeah, definitely. So we offer, you know, variety, like, you
can have gamma go out and search the web for
images for you if you're looking for beautiful stock images,
you can have AI generate images for you. So we
offer a variety of the top models out there so
you can choose. Every model might have its signature sort of, uh,
type of visual or aesthetic, and you can lean into
(16:04):
the one that is most useful for the context of
what you're presenting on. You can take that. You can,
you know, continue to edit the AI, the image with AI.
So removing backgrounds, replacing black backgrounds, adding text, uh, animating
the image. So if you wanted to take a still
image and just bring it to life, you can do
all that in gamma. We have a variety of ways
(16:25):
you can create things like layouts, visuals, diagrams. So you
need something much more, uh, sort of intended to be like,
you know, whether it's like an infographic or something just
to help you kind of walk through something that could
just be a, you know, set of bullet points. But
how do you actually visualize that? We give you a
variety of tools there. Um, so yeah, there's many different ways.
I think we want to let the user kind of
(16:46):
mold and shape their, their content in whatever ways is
most compelling again for for their audience. And a lot
of that can be both a combination of, um, you know,
non AI tools like stock images as well as, you know,
obviously leaning into AI generation as, as an additional way
to kind of supercharge your content.
S1 (17:04):
Nice. And so what seems to be like the most popular, uh,
feature or set of features? Uh, and what are your favorites?
S2 (17:12):
Yeah. I mean, a lot of it is, is bucketed
into the AI generation workflow, right? So it's like, again,
going back to like changing the way people approach content creation,
their relationship with technology broadly. I think that's where people
go in is like, wow, this is just fundamentally different
than how I might start a presentation in PowerPoint. And
(17:34):
so people love that it overcomes, you know, two big things.
One is the cold start problem, like actually knowing even
how to begin. And two is like people's inherent limitations
when it comes to like their own creativity. They can
imagine a lot of things, but to actually translate it
into something that can be on a canvas, like a slide,
is like nearly impossible for most people. And so we
(17:55):
can kind of knock those two down right out the
gate and give them something that, you know, that actually
keeps them around and gives them, you know, the tools
that they need to kind of get the job done.
S1 (18:06):
Nice. Uh, anything coming out immediately, soon that you're willing to, uh,
talk about or announce or anything?
S2 (18:12):
Yeah. So we'll be doing, you know, today kind of
the premise of gamma. Still, as an end user, you
go in, you're still, you know, putting a lot of
manual effort into creating the content. And of course, AI
is there to assist you, but you're kind of nudging
things along the way. And let's say, like you get
to a point where you just love the the output,
you love the slide deck. You want to like, like
(18:33):
make this your own. We're going to enable much more
sort of automated creation such that you have that one
slide deck. Now you can crank out a hundred more
just like it, but maybe personalize it for different audiences,
different types of clients, different folks in different countries via
our API. So we will allow you to integrate with Zapier.
Make all of your favorite tools. Uh, keep keep a
(18:55):
template that you love. Generate many more like it. Personalize
that content, make that super easy and fast. And so
I think a lot of people are going to be
able to get even more value out of gamma by
plugging in and leveraging your API.
S1 (19:08):
Okay, cool. That was my next question. What does this
look like? Multiple releases from now, like two years from now,
like or even further in the future? What ideally does
propagating an idea look like with gamma?
S2 (19:23):
Yeah, I think there's a few different dimensions. Certainly I
mentioned just the different amounts of like formats we want
to be able to support. So you know, presentations has
been our wedge. I think over time we'll be able
to go in and you know, again not having to
learn ten different tools. Like what if you can create
all this content and it's all riffing off of your ideas, right.
It's your concepts and we're just helping you shape it
(19:44):
in many more ways. And then of course automating content
creation so that when needed, you can just have way
more leverage. So I think you're just going to see
even more of that. And it's going to be across
a lot of interesting formats that people can lean into,
where historically, if they don't have video skills like that,
feels too intimidating. What if we can offer much more
of that? So we'll see some of that? Um, I
(20:07):
think there's going to be, you know, today a lot.
You know, the vast majority of our users are still, uh,
individuals in small teams. And I think we're going to
be able to see kind of, uh, gamma as a
format start spreading internally into much larger organizations. So, um,
a viable true alternative and replacement to like a PowerPoint
and Google Slides, where, you know, if slides is currently
(20:28):
sort of the language of business and how kind of
big ideas and decisions get made internally. Um, we'll see
a lot more shift to tools like gamma, where all
of a sudden, you know, that's that's the starting point
and the ending point for how people kind of, you know,
share information internally. So, um, we're confident we're going to
start seeing a lot more of that as well.
S1 (20:47):
Very cool. And where can people find out about the company?
S2 (20:50):
Yeah, the easiest way is just it's a freemium product.
So come check it out. It's gamma dot app. Uh,
you know, you can, um, jump on, start creating content.
We give all new users, uh, free credits so they
can play around with our AI. And then, yeah, if
you're on LinkedIn or Twitter, come find me. Um, I'm
just Grant Lee. I would love to get your feedback,
(21:11):
your input, and hear what's working, what's not. We'd love
to continue to iterate on the product.
S1 (21:16):
Awesome. Well, thanks a lot, Grant. Talk to you soon.
S2 (21:19):
Thanks so much for having me. Bye bye.
S1 (21:23):
Unsupervised learning is produced on Hindenburg Pro using an Sm7 microphone.
A video version of the podcast is available on the
Unsupervised Learning YouTube channel, and the text version with full
links and notes is available at Daniel Comm Slash newsletter.
We'll see you next time.
Unsupervised Learning is a podcast about trends and ideas in cybersecurity,
national security, AI, technology and society, and how best to
upgrade ourselves to be ready for what's coming. All right,
welcome to unsupervised learning.
S2 (00:19):
Hey, thanks for having me.
S1 (00:22):
Cool. So, um, I've heard a lot about your product.
I've seen a couple glimpses of it, um, in screenshots
and people talking about it on social media. I think
I might have messed around with it just slightly, a
little bit a couple of times, but I really want
to kind of move my whole workflow to kind of
using it. Can you just give some background on yourself
(00:43):
and what the what the product and company is?
S2 (00:45):
Yeah, definitely. So gamma is uh, you can think of
it as building the anti PowerPoint. So slides as a format.
I've been around for almost 40 years. We've all used
it since we were kids. Uh, require a ton of
formatting designing, aligning of boxes. And we wanted to kind
of reimagine how people share and present their ideas from
(01:06):
the ground up. So we started again a little bit
over four years ago. The idea was really to kind
of fundamentally rethink all the building blocks and then, of course,
integrate AI deeply into the entire creation flow so that you,
as someone that may not have design skills or resources,
can work with gamma as if you have like an
expert design partner sitting right next to you, helping you
guide the entire creation flow along the way.
S1 (01:31):
Yeah, that makes sense. Are you seeing the whole AI
thing kind of pushing a desire for this more? Um,
or is it just that it's enabling the the product
to be better? Like, um, what sort of trends are
you seeing, like pushing in this direction?
S2 (01:47):
Yeah, definitely. I think for many people it's rewiring how they,
you know, their relationship with technology. So in the past,
when you go into a tool like PowerPoint or Google Slides,
you as the creator need to do all the heavy lifting.
You start with a blank slide, right? And you're going
in and thinking about, you know, how do I create
the right layout? How do I express my ideas the
(02:08):
right way, such that the person on the receiving end
has the best chance of understanding what's in my head? Um,
and with gamma, we try to really help pave a
much more, uh, fun and interesting path so that you're not, uh,
you know, left to figure it out all on your own.
We can present you a ton of different design options.
We can help you craft a more compelling narrative story
(02:29):
arc to your presentation. We can help find all the
right assets to complement what you are trying to present.
So whether that's text, images, uh, diagrams, visuals, um, all
of that should really help you put your best foot
forward without you having to boil the ocean to find
the perfect visual. Um, so in that sense, you know,
people can go in. It feels a lot more effortless
(02:50):
to kind of create content. It feels a lot less
daunting and in many cases, much more fun to go
into a tool like gamma versus the incumbent tools.
S1 (02:58):
Yeah, that makes sense. So, um, I'm going to tell
you what my workflow is, and I want to see how, uh,
how close we can get there with, uh, the product.
So the way I've been thinking about this, um, because
I've done presentations for so long, uh, just having been
in the industry for so long. Right. And I would
say that I normally been kind of bad at it. Um,
(03:21):
I'm getting better more recently because I'm focusing more on, like,
the arc of the story. Right? Um, and I kind
of use, uh, Ted as one of my pinnacles, um,
because usually it's just like an image in the background,
and the person is talking through the story. Right? And
then the image is just like. And sometimes there's text
on it, but mostly it's just like an image that's
(03:42):
supporting it. So what I've taken to do now is
essentially I, I just basically rant the whole thing, uh,
describing the flow start to finish. What is the story
that I want to tell? And what I've found is that, um,
this works way better than starting with slides. If I
start with slides, uh, either if I think of it's
(04:05):
a cool template or I had a couple of slides.
What I found is it's really it's almost impossible to
break out of your slides 100%. And what you end
up doing is you end up like trying to add
a slide to work with the one that you already have.
So you're like, well, what should go before it? What
should come after it, right? When in fact we should
(04:26):
be thinking nothing about slides whatsoever. Discard all of this.
Get the flow and the story and like, almost like
the script, even if you're not going to actually read it. Um,
which most people don't. But get that working perfectly then
make the slides. So, um, I think I saw in
(04:46):
the product somewhere there was like a, a prompt area
or something, right? Um, but is it possible to basically
give either almost there or like a mostly there or
even partially there arc and then say, you know, build
this out and then I need this much supporting text
and I need these types of graphics.
S2 (05:07):
Yes. Yes, definitely. So what you're describing, I think, is,
is a very sort of natural way people would love
to build, to craft their presentations as they could. And
we do see a lot of users now kind of
changing their workflow from maybe what they had done in
the past. And so one is, yeah, maybe even going
into a ChatGPT like tool where you can riff on,
you know, that, that a little bit, you start with
(05:29):
a it could be even just like you're recording and
you're kind of you take the transcript, the initial more
raw transcript than you use ChatGPT to refine it a
little bit more, maybe ask it questions around, like, you know,
what am I missing here? Or like, how could I
make my story even more impactful or more engaging? Or
how do I open with a stronger hook or a
stronger opening? And then you get that to a good
place you might have, like, now, you know, pretty big
(05:52):
wall of text. You can copy and paste that the
entire thing directly into gamma and then say, hey, you know,
I'm trying to take this and create, you know, a
ten slide deck that's much more visual, gives me a
complimentary images and still allows me to hit my main points. And,
and then gamma can do that for you. Um, you
can also just, you know, take even the raw input
(06:13):
like you had mentioned. Like maybe not. You can actually
skip it altogether. You actually just go directly into gamma
and say, hey, this is raw input. I need it
to be made for keynote address. I'm presenting to, you know,
some technical audience and how do I now take that.
And so you can describe what you need. Gamma similarly
can kind of walk you through it. That will get
(06:34):
you kind of the first draft. And then we also
now have the ability you can then continue to chat
with AI to say, hey, okay, first draft is pretty good,
but you know what? The theme we selected doesn't quite
have the right look and feel. So why don't we
go with something completely different? I actually want something a
little bit more dark and minimalistic, minimalist, and you know,
can you kind of choose something, uh, something else. And
(06:54):
gamma can find you a different sort of vibe to
go with. Then you might also say, hey, you know what? Um,
there's this one slide. I really liked the layout of this.
Let's just actually replace all the other supporting slides with
the same layout, because this one is, like really effective and,
and kind of, uh, you know, top to bottom, just
completely revamped the, you know, the deck based on some input.
You can similarly kind of upload screenshots or images or
(07:17):
like other supporting information and say, actually, I need an
additional slide on this. Can you now create, you know,
keep the rest of the content? I want to now
build on this because then now let's start riffing. And
this is the analogy of like having like an expert
design partner sitting next to you. It's as if you're
you're a person sitting next to you is that expert
presentation designer. And you're like, okay, this first draft is okay,
(07:37):
but I want to keep riffing, tell me what you need,
and we're going to get you to the right place.
S1 (07:43):
Yeah, yeah. That last piece, that's exactly what came to
mind while you were finishing that. Um, yeah. So this
is a big difference. This is a big difference. As
opposed to like, okay, this is a website that you
go to, and it's a website that is basically a
presentation tool and you can type stuff in. It's a
(08:04):
completely different thing to be like it's it's basically an agent.
Gamma is a website agent that you talk to. And
maybe with the analogy of like, um, started to be
doing a product design and marketing with you, but um,
but um, it's like, okay, if you are a super
(08:25):
high level, uh, CEO or CTO or whatever, you generally
have a presentation person, right? And this is a superpower
that you have because they know things about you. They
know the company. They're also design experts. Totally. So they're
literally just looking at the screen as it gets updated
and saying, no, more like this, less of this, more
(08:48):
of that. Right. Yeah. Let's, um, let's text. They're actually
we want this image to be a little more, you know,
edgy or whatever. And then, uh, he or she is, like,
doing the magic. And like, that is. That's really where
we want to be at.
S2 (09:03):
Totally. Yeah. Most of us, to your point, do not
have that person. Right. Like if you are an executive
of a company, you might have one. You might actually
have a team of people helping you with that. And like, uh,
they are proactively both suggesting ideas, but it can also
just really quickly close the feedback loop. If you have
something you want to change or something just doesn't feel right,
they can give you five more ideas and then you
(09:24):
just keep riffing, right? And we yeah, dude, the average person,
because they don't have that they get stuck in this very,
you know, rudimentary stage of like slide creation. And we
want to help uplevel everybody so that they have access
to the exact same expertise that, that anybody might have
if they are an executive of a much larger company.
S1 (09:44):
So what do you feel like you guys are doing
better than, um, other people? Because I'm sure there's other
people sort of moving in this direction. Um, what do
you feel like you guys get that they don't, or
the industry in general doesn't get about presentations.
S2 (09:59):
Yeah, there's a few things. I mean, for one, you know,
this is our sole focus. I think there's a lot
of tools out there that are trying to do many
things all at once, and we're trying to do this
one thing really great. And so deeply understanding customers pain
points where we can really help them and go deep
on that. And obviously, there's a ton of experimentation and
working closely with those users to really kind of iterate
(10:21):
a ton over time. So that's something, you know, we've
been doing it for already four plus years. We intend
to be doing it for a very, very long time.
And and it's a space that we're, we're very passionate about. Um,
the second thing is, you know, we are trying to
acknowledge that, um, presentations as, as a format probably needs
a bit of, uh, you know, rethinking or reimagining. I mentioned,
(10:41):
you know, we, uh, started off in thinking about, okay,
slides as a format have been around for almost 40 years,
16 by nine, sort of, you know, fixed an aspect ratio.
Great for Or presenting. You know, when everyone's sitting in
the same room staring at the same projector or projection
screen or, um, you know, I need to print something
on a piece of paper. But what that doesn't sort
(11:02):
of acknowledge is like, a lot of what we are
doing today is like either presenting over screen share or
I want to send something to somebody and they are
going to open it on their own phone. And so
how do you create something that acknowledges where kind of
work is already shifting and acknowledge or embrace all the
sort of goodness that, you know, modern web technology already offers,
the browser and everything else. And so, um, we want
(11:25):
to be able to enable people not only just to
create presentations, but create presentations of the future, which is
mobile friendly by default, interactive, multimedia rich, easily shareable, all
these things that we think modern tools should enable. And
so gamma enables, you know, not just the creation of
presentations but modern presentations. And with that, we also have
(11:47):
a medium that's much more malleable. So if you are
starting off with something that is intended to be more presentational.
What if you also wanted to create an highly engaging
document that can also be passed around as a proposal?
Or what if you want to take the exact same
content and use it for social media and have social
assets that are really made for social sharing? Or what
(12:07):
if you want to take the exact same content and
create microsites, websites, things that are intended to be interactive? Um,
and so we want, you know, all that to be
in the same place so that a user doesn't need
to learn ten different tools. They can use gamma. Gamma
can help shape and mold that content into whatever format
it needs to be. And you're off to the races.
S1 (12:27):
Okay. You're you're getting me excited here. Okay. So I'm
pulling a layer back from presentations. It's about idea propagation. Totally.
And then essentially, like the tool needs to figure out okay, um,
what is the core idea. Does that have like a
native presentation style that that suits it best. Right. Then
(12:49):
it's like, okay, who is the presenter? Then it's like,
who are the receivers of the presentation? And then what?
Like to your point, what medium are they on? Is
it zoom? Are they in the room? Is it a
giant screen? Is it a tiny screen? Right. Is it
a mobile? Uh, are they only on mobile? Right. And
then all of those context pieces actually would change that,
(13:11):
that that is super interesting. Um, you know, what I've
been experimenting with and I think is really cool is, um,
sometimes I think I've seen Dwarkesh do this a couple
of times. Um, so he'll just be talking kind of
like what we're going to do in this video here. Actually,
you're already seeing in this video is, um, you'll just
(13:31):
be talking and over the top of it, like an
image or especially a video plays. Right? And it's just
like this little clip. And it could just be like
a weather pattern. We're talking about chaos. And you see
like this weather pattern thing. Right? Right. And it's like, oh,
somehow that little weather pattern thing, when Grant said Chaos.
(13:52):
It just made it click that much more. Yeah, and
it's like, I think that is really, really cool. Um, uh,
are there any features now or any, um, things coming
soon that are similar to that where it could be
like maybe not necessarily a slide with text with an image,
but more so. Okay. This just calls for an image
(14:12):
by itself, and maybe it calls for an image with text,
or maybe it calls for a short little video clip.
S2 (14:19):
Yeah, yeah. They're gonna there's gonna be much more of that,
I think. Yeah. To your point around, you know, we're
all visual beings and, uh, the ability to tie concepts
ideas to something visual just makes it way easier to
remember and also way easier to share and, you know, spread. Um,
and so, yeah, we want to lean into, um, the
ability to create all sorts of outputs. Video, audio will
(14:42):
certainly be areas we continue to explore. Um, and then, uh, today,
you know, a lot of our, uh, the content that
comes out still is pretty, you know, can be text
heavy or has like a text leaning. You know, aspect
of it. We want to build to also embrace like
just really visual cinematic content. And so we have a
lot of cool stuff coming here in the near term,
(15:03):
which will kind of unlock much more of that sort
of creativity, where maybe it isn't a bunch of words,
but it's actually just like this perfect visual that drives
that point. About your point home. We want to be
able to support that as well.
S1 (15:16):
Yeah. And what's cool about that is it all starts
with the very first piece, which, um, is in the
product now, which is what do you want to say?
It starts with that hook and narrative and everything can
build off of there. Um, what are the current sort of, um,
graphical options, uh, that we have, like in terms of like, uh, doing,
(15:37):
you know, animations or like, uh, picking a perfect, uh,
graphic for a particular slide or whatever.
S2 (15:43):
Yeah, definitely. So we offer, you know, variety, like, you
can have gamma go out and search the web for
images for you if you're looking for beautiful stock images,
you can have AI generate images for you. So we
offer a variety of the top models out there so
you can choose. Every model might have its signature sort of, uh,
type of visual or aesthetic, and you can lean into
(16:04):
the one that is most useful for the context of
what you're presenting on. You can take that. You can,
you know, continue to edit the AI, the image with AI.
So removing backgrounds, replacing black backgrounds, adding text, uh, animating
the image. So if you wanted to take a still
image and just bring it to life, you can do
all that in gamma. We have a variety of ways
(16:25):
you can create things like layouts, visuals, diagrams. So you
need something much more, uh, sort of intended to be like,
you know, whether it's like an infographic or something just
to help you kind of walk through something that could
just be a, you know, set of bullet points. But
how do you actually visualize that? We give you a
variety of tools there. Um, so yeah, there's many different ways.
I think we want to let the user kind of
(16:46):
mold and shape their, their content in whatever ways is
most compelling again for for their audience. And a lot
of that can be both a combination of, um, you know,
non AI tools like stock images as well as, you know,
obviously leaning into AI generation as, as an additional way
to kind of supercharge your content.
S1 (17:04):
Nice. And so what seems to be like the most popular, uh,
feature or set of features? Uh, and what are your favorites?
S2 (17:12):
Yeah. I mean, a lot of it is, is bucketed
into the AI generation workflow, right? So it's like, again,
going back to like changing the way people approach content creation,
their relationship with technology broadly. I think that's where people
go in is like, wow, this is just fundamentally different
than how I might start a presentation in PowerPoint. And
(17:34):
so people love that it overcomes, you know, two big things.
One is the cold start problem, like actually knowing even
how to begin. And two is like people's inherent limitations
when it comes to like their own creativity. They can
imagine a lot of things, but to actually translate it
into something that can be on a canvas, like a slide,
is like nearly impossible for most people. And so we
(17:55):
can kind of knock those two down right out the
gate and give them something that, you know, that actually
keeps them around and gives them, you know, the tools
that they need to kind of get the job done.
S1 (18:06):
Nice. Uh, anything coming out immediately, soon that you're willing to, uh,
talk about or announce or anything?
S2 (18:12):
Yeah. So we'll be doing, you know, today kind of
the premise of gamma. Still, as an end user, you
go in, you're still, you know, putting a lot of
manual effort into creating the content. And of course, AI
is there to assist you, but you're kind of nudging
things along the way. And let's say, like you get
to a point where you just love the the output,
you love the slide deck. You want to like, like
(18:33):
make this your own. We're going to enable much more
sort of automated creation such that you have that one
slide deck. Now you can crank out a hundred more
just like it, but maybe personalize it for different audiences,
different types of clients, different folks in different countries via
our API. So we will allow you to integrate with Zapier.
Make all of your favorite tools. Uh, keep keep a
(18:55):
template that you love. Generate many more like it. Personalize
that content, make that super easy and fast. And so
I think a lot of people are going to be
able to get even more value out of gamma by
plugging in and leveraging your API.
S1 (19:08):
Okay, cool. That was my next question. What does this
look like? Multiple releases from now, like two years from now,
like or even further in the future? What ideally does
propagating an idea look like with gamma?
S2 (19:23):
Yeah, I think there's a few different dimensions. Certainly I
mentioned just the different amounts of like formats we want
to be able to support. So you know, presentations has
been our wedge. I think over time we'll be able
to go in and you know, again not having to
learn ten different tools. Like what if you can create
all this content and it's all riffing off of your ideas, right.
It's your concepts and we're just helping you shape it
(19:44):
in many more ways. And then of course automating content
creation so that when needed, you can just have way
more leverage. So I think you're just going to see
even more of that. And it's going to be across
a lot of interesting formats that people can lean into,
where historically, if they don't have video skills like that,
feels too intimidating. What if we can offer much more
of that? So we'll see some of that? Um, I
(20:07):
think there's going to be, you know, today a lot.
You know, the vast majority of our users are still, uh,
individuals in small teams. And I think we're going to
be able to see kind of, uh, gamma as a
format start spreading internally into much larger organizations. So, um,
a viable true alternative and replacement to like a PowerPoint
and Google Slides, where, you know, if slides is currently
(20:28):
sort of the language of business and how kind of
big ideas and decisions get made internally. Um, we'll see
a lot more shift to tools like gamma, where all
of a sudden, you know, that's that's the starting point
and the ending point for how people kind of, you know,
share information internally. So, um, we're confident we're going to
start seeing a lot more of that as well.
S1 (20:47):
Very cool. And where can people find out about the company?
S2 (20:50):
Yeah, the easiest way is just it's a freemium product.
So come check it out. It's gamma dot app. Uh,
you know, you can, um, jump on, start creating content.
We give all new users, uh, free credits so they
can play around with our AI. And then, yeah, if
you're on LinkedIn or Twitter, come find me. Um, I'm
just Grant Lee. I would love to get your feedback,
(21:11):
your input, and hear what's working, what's not. We'd love
to continue to iterate on the product.
S1 (21:16):
Awesome. Well, thanks a lot, Grant. Talk to you soon.
S2 (21:19):
Thanks so much for having me. Bye bye.
S1 (21:23):
Unsupervised learning is produced on Hindenburg Pro using an Sm7 microphone.
A video version of the podcast is available on the
Unsupervised Learning YouTube channel, and the text version with full
links and notes is available at Daniel Comm Slash newsletter.
We'll see you next time.
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