The Problem with AI Presentation Tools (And What We're Doing Differently)

I've tried dozens of AI presentation tools over the past year. The pitch is always the same: "Create stunning slides in seconds!" But here's what actually happens: You get a decent first draft, then spend hours fighting with the tool to make basic edits.

Sound familiar?

The root issue is that most AI slide tools treat editing as an afterthought. They're built around the flashy "one-click generation" feature, but fall apart when you need to change a bullet point or adjust formatting.

The "AI Agent" Solution That Isn't Really a Solution

Recognizing this problem, many tools have pivoted to what they call an "AI agent" approach. The idea sounds compelling: just tell the AI what you want to change, and it handles everything for you. "It's like having Cursor for presentations!" they say.

But this approach has fundamental flaws:

It's incredibly inefficient for small changes. Want to add a new perspective to your market analysis slide? You have to describe it to the AI, wait for processing, then hope it understood your intent and placed it in the right context. What should take 10 seconds of typing becomes a 30-second conversation with a chatbot.

It misunderstands what makes Cursor successful. The companies pushing this "AI agent" model seem to miss a crucial point about Cursor: it's primarily an excellent code editor that happens to have AI features, not an AI that happens to let you edit code. The direct editing capabilities come first, AI assistance comes second.

Most developers use Cursor's AI for generating boilerplate or solving complex problems, but they still do most editing by hand because it's faster and more precise. The AI is a powerful copilot, not the primary interface.

How We're Building FunBlocks AI Slides Differently

We took a step back and asked: what if we built the editing experience first, then added AI on top?

Markdown as the foundation. Instead of proprietary slide formats, we use Markdown. Anyone who's written documentation or blog posts knows how fast and intuitive Markdown can be. You get the directness of plain text with just enough formatting to create professional slides.

AI as a powerful assistant, not a gatekeeper. Our AI can generate entire presentations from a prompt, but it can also help with specific tasks: "Make this section more concise" or "Add three bullet points about market analysis." The key difference is that you can immediately see and edit the Markdown it generates.

Real flexibility when you need it. Because everything is in Markdown, you're never locked into the AI's interpretation. Change a word, restructure a section, or completely rewrite a slide – it all happens at the speed of typing, not at the speed of explaining your intent to an AI.

This creates a natural workflow: use AI for the heavy lifting of content generation and structure, then fine-tune with direct editing. It's the best of both worlds without the frustrations of either extreme.

Why This Matters

Good tools should make you more productive, not create new bottlenecks. When editing requires a conversation with AI for every small change, you've just replaced one frustration with another.

The future of AI productivity tools isn't about replacing human control – it's about augmenting human capabilities while preserving the speed and precision of direct interaction when you need it.

That's the philosophy behind FunBlocks AI Slides, and it's why our users consistently tell us they can create and refine presentations faster than with any other tool they've tried.