Ultimate Guide to Using AI for Public Speaking: Boost Your Preparation, Clarity, and Confidence

AI for Public Speaking
Written By Liam Sandford
Liam Sandford

Liam Sandford

Liam Sandford is a public speaking coach, marketing leader, and 2x Best Selling Author, including the book Effortless Public Speaking. He helps introverted professionals and leaders take control of public speaking anxiety and use speaking to market themselves, build influence, and communicate with impact.

Learn more about Liam

Public speaking is one of the most common fears in the world, and it takes people lots of time to prepare for a presentation, but the landscape is changing with AI. Artificial intelligence is not here to replace public speaking coaching, but it can help you with crafting compelling narratives, engaging slide design, and save you a ton of time when you have a presentation to prepare for. Think of AI as your support assistant that can make public speaking easier for you.

With AI as your public speaking assistant, you can improve your presentation skills faster and more efficiently, while still keeping your authenticity. AI tools for public speaking can help you with crafting narratives, generating stories that will engage your audience, and give you real time research into your audience to enhance your public speaking.

Throughout this ultimate guide to using AI for public speaking, you will learn how to leverage AI to support your public speaking journey. You will discover ways to overcome common speaking challenges, create compelling presentations, and practice effectively, all while building real confidence without feeling overwhelmed.

If you feel intimidated by AI tools, don’t worry because the barrier to entry is super low. Although it is thought of as ‘high tech’, it is really simple to use, meaning you don’t need a tech brain to get up to speed quickly.

By the end of this guide, you will have practical strategies, including example prompts, to use AI to enhance your public speaking. Whether you are a beginner aiming to gain confidence or a seasoned presenter looking to refine your skills and shrink the time it takes you to prepare, this guide provides actionable insights. I have been using AI since 2022 when Chat GPT first hit the market, and have been testing out ways to use AI to enhance public speaking, both with my own speaking engagements, and with my public speaking clients. I have created this ultimate guide with these insights to help you get used to applying AI to public speaking, without getting caught up in some bad practices.

Why AI Is Transforming Public Speaking

AI has the ability to transform public speaking because it can remove the friction that stops most people from preparing well. Many people want to use AI to support their presentations, but it doesn’t always feel easy to embed AI without having it do all of the work. The real power of AI is that it makes public speaking preparation quicker, clearer, and far less overwhelming. This gives you more space to focus on the human part of speaking that truly matters.

How AI Is Changing Speech Writing, Clarity, and Audience Connection

AI helps you simplify the parts of public speaking that often feel heavy. It supports you with shaping ideas, exploring new angles, and finding the clearest way to express your message. Instead of staring at a blank page, you can ask AI for starting points, outline variations, or alternative ways of framing your story. This helps you make progress faster and with far less stress.

AI wired brain

You can also use AI to understand your audience more deeply. It can help you explore their needs and likely questions so your message lands with more intention. While the personality and delivery come from you, AI can make the preparation stage sharper and more focused. When your thinking is clearer, your confidence grows long before you ever step in front of an audience.

Using AI to Assist Not Replace in Public Speaking

The best way to use AI for public speaking is to strengthen preparation, not replace it. You can ask AI to generate story ideas, test different versions of your key message, or explore stronger openings and closes. You can use it as a thinking partner to organise complex ideas so you can focus on the parts that require human judgment and experience.

Clarity can lead to confidence. AI can help speakers to gain clarity faster by supporting the early stages of drafting and idea development. Instead of spending hours wrestling with structure or phrasing, speakers can let AI speed up the foundation so they can spend their energy on refining, rehearsing, and making the message truly their own. They are not outsourcing their talk. They are clearing the path to deliver it at their best.

The Benefits and Limitations of AI As a Speaking Partner

AI is incredibly helpful for the preparation process because it handles the technical and organisational parts of communication. It helps with outlining, brainstorming, simplifying, and restructuring your ideas. This creates momentum at the exact moment most people get stuck. Preparation becomes lighter, quicker, and more repeatable.

AI does have limitations and this is where your human skill matters most. It cannot feel the room, understand emotional nuance, or bring real lived experience to your message. It cannot support your delivery or presence. AI can strengthen your preparation, but you bring the meaning, the emotion, and the connection. Understanding this balance keeps you fully in control. AI helps you prepare with more clarity and less stress, and the message remains fully yours.

How to Use AI to Write and Refine Your Speech

Writing a full script for your public speaking is usually not the best approach. It often creates pressure, makes your delivery sound unnatural, and puts reliance on your memory when the pressure is high. Instead, the goal is to build a clear structure that supports your message without restricting your personality. This is where the Nano Speech framework becomes incredibly helpful. A simple open, a clear message in the middle, and a purposeful close give you structure without rigidity. AI can support this process by helping you think, organise, and simplify the early stages of preparation so you can focus on the human part of speaking that truly matters.

How to Use AI to Outline Your Presentation Structure and Flow

AI can help you move from an empty page to a clear structure quickly. You can ask it to generate outline options based on your topic, your goal, and your audience. It can help you decide how to open your presentation, how to organise your main ideas, and how to close with intention. This gives you clarity early in the process and removes the heavy feeling that often comes with planning a presentation.

You can also use AI to explore different variations of your structure. You can test a story led structure, a data led structure, or a simple three point structure. Seeing your presentation in multiple formats helps you choose the direction that fits your message. When your outline is in place, writing becomes easier and your confidence grows long before you step in front of an audience. The quality of your presentation outline will largely depend on how good your AI prompts are.

How to Use AI to Create a Nano Speech

The Nano Speech Public Speaking Framework

The Nano Speech is the best structure you can use for public speaking. I created the framework to help people use conversations as relevant public speaking practice without the pressure. It is the structure that works for both conversations and presentations. It includes three parts. An engaging open. A clear message in the middle. A purposeful close. AI can help you draft versions of your Nano Speech so you can explore different ways to express your ideas.

You can ask AI to create several variations of each part. It can generate different opening hooks, alternative ways to phrase your core message, or stronger closes that reinforce your key point. This gives you options to choose from and speeds up the thinking stage. Once you have a Nano Speech you feel confident with, you can expand it into a full presentation while keeping clarity and simplicity at the centre.

How to Edit and Humanise AI Written Content

AI is helpful for creating drafts and variations, but your voice is what makes your message real. After AI gives you content, the next step is to refine it. You can adjust the language so it sounds like you, simplify phrases that feel too formal, and add your own stories and examples. Your lived experience is something AI cannot generate, and it is the part your audience connects with most. If you don’t refine what you are given by AI your presentation will fall flat on its face.

Editing AI content is about shaping raw material. You remove what is not needed, expand what matters, and keep the parts that strengthen your message. When you mix AI generated structure with your personal insights, your presentation becomes more authentic and much easier to deliver with confidence. AI will get you 65% there, the other 35% must come from you.

Avoiding Overreliance and Keeping Your Voice Authentic

AI makes preparation faster and clearer, but your voice is at the heart of your presentation. The goal is to use AI as support, not as a replacement for your thinking or your experience. You can let AI help with brainstorming and organisation, but your stories, your tone, and your perspective create the real connection.

To keep your voice authentic, read your content out loud and notice how it feels. Replace lines that sound unnatural, add moments of personal insight, and use the language you would use in conversation. This keeps your message grounded and real. AI clears the path, but you shape the destination. Your message stays human, personal, and unmistakably yours. Your presentation becomes AI assisted, not AI replaced.

Microphone for public speaking

How to Use AI to Generate Public Speaking Ideas

Generating ideas for public speaking can feel like the hardest part of preparation. Most people get stuck here, staring at a blank page, unsure what will resonate with their audience. AI can make this stage easier without taking over your thinking. It acts as a thinking partner, giving you options, prompts, and perspectives that help you discover ideas worth exploring. Using AI in this way allows you to focus on refining, connecting, and creating presentations that truly engage. The ideas themselves still come from you, but AI helps you get unstuck and move faster.

Brainstorming Prompts for Topics Your Audience Cares About

AI can help you explore topics your audience will actually care about. You can feed it information about your audience, their challenges, and your area of expertise, and ask it to generate prompts or potential presentation topics. This can include common questions they might have, recurring problems in your field, or interesting angles that make a subject more relevant.

The key is to use AI to remove the blank page, not to replace your thinking. Treat the suggestions as starting points. You choose which ideas align with your experience, your perspective, and what you are genuinely excited to speak about. AI helps you surface possibilities quickly so you can focus on the ones that will make your presentations engaging and meaningful.

Here are three example prompts I have used myself to generate ideas for public speaking:

  1. Work Presentation Prompt:
    "I have been asked to deliver a presentation at work. My audience is [insert who they are, e.g., my team, the leadership group], the presentation will be [insert duration, e.g., 20 minutes], and the topic is [insert topic]. What key points, stories, and examples should I include to make this presentation engaging, informative, and actionable for this audience?"

  2. Event or Conference Presentation Prompt:
    "I am preparing to deliver a presentation at [insert event or conference]. The target audience is [insert audience, e.g., industry peers, conference attendees], the presentation will last [insert duration], and the topic is [insert topic]. What stories, examples, and insights should I include to make this presentation memorable and valuable for this audience?"

  3. General Idea Exploration Prompt:
    "I want to generate public speaking ideas that my audience will care about. My audience is [insert description], and they are interested in [insert area of interest]. What are 5-10 compelling presentation topics or angles I could speak about that will resonate with this audience, spark engagement, and feel authentic to me?"

These prompts are designed to give you a starting point. I have used all three in my own preparation to generate multiple presentation ideas quickly. They help you move from uncertainty to a clear list of potential topics you can refine and build into structured, confident presentations. It is far easier to start with a list of ideas compared to staring at a blank page.

Using AI to Identify Trending Industry Conversations

Staying relevant is a constant challenge in public speaking. AI can assist by identifying trending conversations in your industry. It can summarise recent discussions, highlight common themes, and help you see which topics are gaining attention. This doesn’t replace your own research or insights, but it makes it easier to spot patterns and discover what people are talking about. It is always useful to fact check anything that AI generates for you if it gives you something trending in your industry that you haven’t heard of.

Using AI in this way helps you show relevance and being up to date with what is going on in the industry. You can combine trends with your expertise and experience to create presentations that feel fresh and timely. AI gives you a snapshot of the current landscape so your ideas are grounded in what matters to your audience right now.

Validating Ideas Through Search and Social Listening

Once you have a list of potential topics, AI can also help you validate them. You can check search trends, social media conversations, or forum discussions to see which ideas are actually capturing attention. This helps you prioritise your topics and focus on the ones most likely to resonate.

Validation is not about letting AI decide for you. It is about using it as a tool to reduce guesswork. You still choose the ideas you feel confident presenting. AI helps you work smarter at this stage, giving you a clearer sense of which topics have traction and which are likely to fall flat. This makes your preparation more efficient and ensures your presentations start with a strong foundation.

How to Use AI to Do Audience Research for Your Presentation

Understanding your audience is one of the most important parts of public speaking, yet it is often rushed or skipped altogether. When you are unclear on who you are speaking to, it becomes harder to choose the right examples, the right language, and the right level of detail. AI can support this stage by helping you think more clearly about your audience before you ever start writing your presentation. It does not replace your judgment or experience, but it helps you prepare with more intention and less guesswork. It helps you craft the message that meets your audience where they are at.

Using AI for audience research allows you to move beyond vague assumptions. Instead of preparing a presentation for everyone, you can shape your message for the people who will actually be in the room. This clarity makes your preparation easier and your delivery more confident.

Analysing Audience Demographics and Pain Points With AI Tools

AI can help you break down who your audience is and what they care about. You can input information such as job roles, seniority, industry, or context, and ask AI to surface common challenges, goals, and pressures that audience might be experiencing. This is especially helpful when you are speaking to an audience you do not interact with regularly.

This process helps you move away from guessing. When you understand likely pain points, you can shape your message to address real concerns rather than generic ones. AI helps you think through what might matter most to your audience so your presentation feels relevant and considered from the very beginning. It is still your responsibility to decide what is accurate and useful, but AI helps you reach that clarity faster.

public speaking audience

Crafting Audience Personas

When you are public speaking, you have one job: to connect your information to the audience. Everything you say should be to serve that purpose because the presentation is not about you as the speaker, it is about the audience. Your preparation should start with your audience persona. Personas are powerful tools for public speaking, but most people never create them because they feel time consuming. AI can simplify this by generating a basic persona based on the audience information you provide. This might include what your audience is thinking, worrying about, trying to achieve, or resisting.

Using personas helps you stay focused during preparation. Instead of writing content in the abstract, you are speaking to a specific person with specific needs. AI helps you create that clarity quickly so you can keep your audience front of mind while structuring your presentation. This often leads to clearer messaging and stronger connection because your presentation is shaped around real human needs rather than assumptions.

Using AI to Personalise Examples and Stories for Each Audience

Once you understand your audience, AI can help you adapt your examples and stories so they land more effectively. You can ask AI to suggest industry relevant scenarios, familiar language, or relatable situations based on who you are speaking to. This is particularly useful when you deliver similar presentations to different audiences.

Personalisation does not mean rewriting everything from scratch. It means adjusting examples so they feel familiar and relevant. AI helps you make those adjustments quickly while keeping your core message consistent. You still bring your own experience and judgment, but AI helps you shape your material so it feels like it was created specifically for the audience in front of you. This is where preparation becomes more intentional and you can start focusing your preparation in the areas you need to practice. In this case, AI will help you get to the point of practicing your presentation quicker.

Which AI Tools Are Best to Help You With Public Speaking?

There are now more AI tools than ever, which can make it hard to know where to start. You could use endless amount of AI tools, but you shouldn’t. Pick the ones that work for you, your specific scenario, and what you are already used to using. AI should be used to help you rather than cause friction so a slim AI stack is the way to go. . AI works best when it simplifies thinking, speeds up preparation, and removes friction. When used intentionally, it helps you get to clarity faster so you can spend more time practising and refining your delivery.

Different AI tools are useful for different parts of the public speaking process. Some are better for thinking and writing, others for visual structure and slide design. Knowing what to use and when keeps your preparation efficient and prevents unnecessary complexity.

What is the Best AI for Writing Your Presentation?

Writing tools are the foundation of AI assisted public speaking. These platforms help you think, structure, and refine your ideas before you ever open a slide deck. They are especially useful in the early stages of preparation when clarity matters most.

Use ChatGPT for Structuring and Idea Development

AI tools

ChatGPT is particularly useful for outlining presentations, generating Nano Speech variations, and exploring different ways to frame a message. You can use it to brainstorm openings, test different core messages, and simplify complex ideas. It works well as a thinking partner when you need momentum and direction.

Use Claude for Clarity and Refinement

Claude is strong at refining language and improving flow. It is useful when you already have a rough structure and want to make your message clearer and more concise. You can use it to tighten phrasing, remove unnecessary complexity, and ensure your message feels logical and easy to follow.

Use Gemini for Research Led Preparation

Gemini can be helpful when your presentation requires supporting context or broader industry understanding. It works well for summarising information and helping you explore different perspectives on a topic. This can support stronger preparation, as long as you apply judgment and verify anything you plan to include.

What is the Best AI for Designing Your Presentation Visuals and Slides?

Once your thinking is clear, AI can also support the visual side of public speaking. These tools help you create clean, simple slides without spending hours on design decisions. Remember that you should make your slides for the audience, not for your prompt. Slides should support your message, not distract from it, and AI makes this much easier to achieve.

Use Beautiful.ai for Structured Slide Layouts

Beautiful.ai is useful when you want slides that follow clear visual logic. It helps keep layouts consistent and prevents overcrowding. This is ideal for presentations where structure and clarity are more important than creative design.

Use Tome for Narrative Flow

Tome works well when you want your slides to follow a clear story. It helps translate written ideas into visual sequences that support narrative flow. This can be helpful when your presentation relies on progression rather than standalone points.

Use Gamma for Speed and Simplicity

Gamma is useful when you want to move quickly from outline to visual format. It helps you generate slides that are clean and minimal, allowing you to focus on what you will say rather than how the slides look. This is especially helpful when preparation time is limited.

How to Build Your Own AI Assisted Speaking Stack

The most effective AI assisted approach to public speaking is simple. You do not need every tool. You need a small stack that supports your process from idea to practice without having too many tabs or apps open. For most speakers, this means one writing tool and one slide tool.

You might use a writing AI to generate ideas, create a Nano Speech, and refine your structure. Then you move to a slide tool to turn that structure into clear visual support. This keeps your preparation focused and prevents you from getting stuck polishing things that do not matter.

Your speaking stack should reduce effort, not add to it. When AI helps you think more clearly and prepare more efficiently, you arrive at practice sooner and with more confidence. That is where real progress in public speaking happens. AI clears the path, but you still do the walking. If at any point you feel friction in using AI to help you with public speaking, it is best to remove it from your process. It should be speeding up your preparation, not creating you additional stress.

How Not to Use AI for Public Speaking

AI can be incredibly helpful for public speaking preparation, but only when it is used with intention. When used poorly, it can do the opposite of what most speakers want. Instead of building clarity and confidence, it can strip away personality, create distance from the audience, and make presentations feel flat. Knowing how not to use AI is just as important as knowing how to use it well.

The goal of AI is to support your thinking, not replace it. When AI becomes the main voice in your preparation, the presentation starts to lose its human edge. This section will help you avoid the most common traps so AI remains an asset rather than a liability.

Why AI Can Flatten Your Personality If Used Poorly

One of the biggest risks of AI assisted preparation is losing your natural voice. AI often defaults to safe, polished, neutral language and tells you what you want to hear. If you lift content directly without shaping it, your presentation can start to sound generic and impersonal. This is where many speakers go wrong.

Your personality is what makes your public speaking memorable. The way you phrase ideas, the examples you choose, and the language you naturally use all signal authenticity. AI cannot replicate that. When you rely too heavily on AI generated language, your presentation may sound technically correct but emotionally empty. Audiences feel this immediately. They may understand the content, but they struggle to connect with the speaker.

The Risk of Over Polishing and Losing Connection

Another common mistake is over polishing content with AI. It is easy to keep refining language until everything sounds perfect on the page. The problem is that public speaking is not a reading exercise. What reads well does not always land well when spoken.

Over polished presentations often lack rhythm and sound robotic. They can feel rehearsed in the wrong way, leaving little room for natural delivery. AI should help you clarify your message, not smooth out every edge. Some roughness is human. Some imperfection creates trust. If your presentation feels too clean, it often becomes harder for the audience to relate to you. Life isn’t polished, so your presentation doesn’t need to be either. Non-perfect language in your presentation might just make you relatable to your audience.

Common Mistakes Speakers Make With AI Writing Tools

One of the most common mistakes is using AI to write a full script and trying to memorise it. This increases pressure and pulls attention away from connection. Another mistake is accepting the first output without questioning it. AI responses are starting points, not finished products.

Speakers also make the mistake of using AI too late in the process. When AI is brought in after everything is already written, it tends to polish rather than clarify. The most effective use of AI happens early, when you are shaping ideas and structure. That is where it removes friction and supports confident preparation.

AI works best when it helps you think more clearly and prepare more efficiently. It should never mute your voice or distance you from your audience. When used intentionally, AI supports effortlessness. When used without care, it does the opposite.

How to Use AI to Land Public Speaking Gigs

Landing public speaking gigs often feels like a separate skill from public speaking itself. It can feel unclear where to look, who to contact, and what to say. AI can support this part of the process by helping you research opportunities, clarify your positioning, and reduce the friction that stops most people from putting themselves forward. It does not replace relationships or reputation, but it can help you show up more consistently and confidently.

Using AI in this way allows you to focus on the quality of your message and your experience, rather than getting stuck in admin or overthinking outreach. The goal is not to automate your credibility, but to make the process of getting visible simpler and more repeatable.

How to Use AI for Researching Conferences, Podcasts, and Event Hosts

Finding the right places to speak takes time. AI can help you speed up this research by identifying relevant conferences, podcasts, panels, and events aligned with your topic and audience. You can ask AI to generate lists based on your area of expertise, the industries you want to speak in, or the type of audience you want to reach.

public speaking

This helps you avoid scattergun outreach. Instead of applying everywhere, you can build a focused list of opportunities that actually make sense for your experience. AI can also help you understand what those events care about, the types of speakers they usually feature, and how your message might fit. This allows you to approach opportunities with clarity rather than guesswork.

How to Use AI to Write Speaker Pitches and Proposals

Writing speaker pitches can feel awkward, especially if you are unsure how to position yourself. AI can help you draft pitch frameworks, refine your messaging, and tailor proposals for specific events or hosts. You can use it to clarify your topic, your audience value, and the outcomes people will leave with.

The key is to use AI to shape the structure, not the substance. Your experience, stories, and credibility must come from you. AI helps you organise that information clearly so your pitch is easy to understand and focused on audience value rather than self promotion. This makes it easier for organisers to see why you are a good fit. The key word here is ‘draft’. AI is great to draft your outreach and proposals, but it should never create the final version you send. AI is your assistant, not your replacement.

Automating Follow Ups and Outreach Sequences

Consistency is often the difference between landing speaking opportunities and giving up. AI can help you plan simple follow up sequences so you stay organised without sounding pushy. You can use it to draft polite follow up messages, spacing ideas, or outreach templates that you then personalise.

This removes emotional friction. Instead of wondering when or how to follow up, you have a clear process. AI supports the system, but you still decide who to contact, when it feels appropriate, and how to personalise each message. This makes outreach feel lighter and more manageable over time.

How to Use AI to Identify PR and Visibility Opportunities

Public speaking opportunities are not limited to stages. AI can also help you identify broader visibility opportunities such as media features, guest articles, panels, and collaborations. You can ask AI to explore where your ideas might fit within current conversations and which platforms align with your message.

This helps you think more strategically about visibility. Rather than waiting for opportunities to appear, you can proactively position yourself where your audience already is. AI helps you spot patterns and possibilities, but you choose which opportunities align with your values and goals. When visibility feels intentional rather than forced, landing public speaking gigs becomes a natural extension of your work rather than a separate task.

How to Use AI to Improve Your Work Presentations

Work presentations often come with high stakes. You may be presenting to leadership, influencing a decision, or reporting on your work. At the same time, they are usually created under time pressure. AI can support your work presentations by helping you clarify your thinking, tighten your message, and prepare more efficiently. It does not replace the work you need to do as a speaker, but it helps you do that work with less stress and more intention.

Using AI for work presentations allows you to spend less time wrestling with structure and more time focusing on what matters. Your message, your clarity, and the outcome you want from the room.

How to Use AI to Craft an Engaging Work Presentation Using the Nano Speech

Most work presentations fail because they are overloaded with information and under structured. The Nano Speech framework solves this by keeping your presentation focused and easy to follow. A engaging open, a clear body, and a purposeful close give your audience confidence in where the presentation is going.

AI can help you apply the Nano Speech framework quickly. You can ask it to generate opening options based on your goal, help you clarify the single message that matters most, and suggest ways to close with intention. This allows you to shape your presentation around clarity rather than volume. The structure comes first, and the slides support it.

Shrink the Time It Takes You to Research the Target Audience

work presentation

In work environments, your audience may change regularly. You might be presenting to different teams, departments, or leadership groups. AI can help you understand the likely priorities, pressures, and decision making style of your audience without spending hours researching.

You can input roles, seniority, and context and ask AI to surface what this audience typically cares about. This helps you choose the right level of detail and the right framing for your message. When you understand your audience faster, you prepare with more confidence and avoid unnecessary complexity in your presentation.

Writing Persuasive Scripts for Internal Presentations

Internal presentations often require persuasion. You may be asking for approval, budget, alignment, or a change in direction. AI can help you draft persuasive content by clarifying your key points, organising your reasoning, and identifying what might matter most to decision makers.

The key is not to memorise a script, but to use AI to shape your thinking. You can use it to explore different ways of framing your message, strengthening your reasoning, or simplifying your language. This gives you clarity so you can speak naturally while still being persuasive and intentional.

Using AI to Craft Your Compelling Close to Get the Decision You Want

Many work presentations end poorly. The content is solid, but the close is unclear. AI can help you design a purposeful close by clarifying the decision you want, the next step you are asking for, or the action required after the presentation.

You can ask AI to generate multiple closing options based on different outcomes. This helps you choose the close that fits the room and the context. A clear close reduces ambiguity and makes it easier for your audience to respond. When your presentation ends with intention, it becomes far more effective and far less exhausting to deliver.

How to Use AI to Improve at Public Speaking

Improving your public speaking is a skill based journey. It requires deliberate practice, reflection, and the application of frameworks that work. AI can support this improvement by helping you think more clearly about your content, structure, and approach. It doesn’t replace the effort, rehearsal, or coaching required to actually improve, but it can make the preparation process lighter, faster, and more intentional.

When used intentionally, AI allows you to focus on what really matters: your confidence, clarity, and ability to engage your audience. It supports the thinking and organisation behind strong public speaking, so that your practice sessions become more productive and less stressful. AI helps you get to the point where you can practice efficiently, leaving more time to focus on delivery, connection, and authenticity.

Can AI Be My Public Speaking Coach?

AI is not a replacement for a public speaking coach. It can’t observe your delivery, feel the room, or respond to the emotional and social cues of a live audience. It can’t adjust your pacing, tone, or gestures in real time. It can’t interpret subtle audience reactions or guide you on how to pivot mid presentation. These are uniquely human skills that require a coach or real world practice.

What AI can do is act as a thinking partner and supercharge your preparation. It can help you:

  • Draft and refine Nano Speech variations and outlines before practice

  • Suggest alternative ways to frame ideas or structure arguments

  • Generate examples or stories to test against different audiences

  • Explore responses to potential questions or objections

When used alongside coaching, AI can make your sessions far more effective. You arrive with ideas already structured, examples prepared, and clarity on your message. This frees your coach to focus on delivery, presence, and feedback that only a human can provide. AI amplifies your ability to practice intelligently, but the real skill and growth still come from live coaching and real world application.

Using AI to Apply Good Public Speaking Frameworks

Public speaking frameworks are essential for confidence and claritysuch as the Nano Speech, storytelling or eyes light up moments. They help your audience follow your ideas and ensure you are delivering a clear, memorable message.

AI can help you apply these frameworks effectively:

  • Generate draft structures for your presentations using the framework

  • Suggest variations for openings, main points, and closes

  • Provide alternative ways to phrase key messages or transitions

  • Test different approaches to make your content concise and engaging

AI speeds up the organisation and ideation stage, letting you see multiple structural options quickly. This ensures that your rehearsal and practice time is focused on delivery and engagement rather than wrestling with ideas on the page. The framework stays intact, your message remains yours, and your preparation becomes more efficient.

Used correctly, AI supports the foundation of your presentation while your practice and coaching refine the delivery. It is a collaboration where AI handles clarity and structure, and you bring nuance, presence, and authenticity. This combination allows you to accelerate improvement without cutting corners on the essential human skills that make public speaking effective.

Prompt Engineering for Public Speaking: How to Get Better Results

AI is only as effective as the prompts you give it. Prompt engineering is about creating the instructions that produce clear, useful, and actionable results. Prompt engineering does not replace your thinking or practice. Instead, it focuses your preparation and ensures the outputs are relevant, structured, and aligned with your personal voice. Mastering prompts is about learning to communicate clearly with AI so it becomes a reliable assistant for your preparation.

The Basics of Prompt Structure: Role, Task, Context, Format

Effective prompts often include four key components:

AI prompt writing

Role – Define who the AI should act as. Assigning a role frames the perspective of the response, guiding AI to think in a way that is relevant to your goal. For example, telling AI it is a communication strategist, an expert speaker, or a professional in your field gives the output context, precision, and authority. Without a clearly defined role, AI outputs can feel generic or unfocused, requiring more editing.

Task – Specify what you want the AI to do. Vague instructions often generate vague results. Be precise about the type of output you want, whether it is generating ideas, summarising research, structuring a presentation, or exploring multiple ways of framing a concept. Clear task instructions allow AI to focus on producing exactly what you need, reducing wasted time.

Context – Give the AI sufficient background to produce relevant outputs. Context might include the topic, setting, audience level, or even constraints such as time, word count, or format. Providing context helps ensure the AI’s suggestions are not only relevant but actionable, saving you the effort of adjusting content to fit your situation.

Format – Specify how you want the information presented. The format could be bullet points, numbered lists, paragraphs or tables. The clearer you are about the format the less time you spend editing outputs. Format instructions make AI a tool that produces content ready for direct application, keeping your preparation efficient.

When all four elements are included, your prompts produce outputs that are focused, useful, and structured. It allows you to spend less time adjusting results and more time thinking critically about how to apply them in your presentations.

Iterating Prompts to Refine Delivery and Voice

Iteration is a central part of prompt engineering. The first response from AI is rarely perfect. You can refine outputs by experimenting with phrasing, adjusting tone, or clarifying your instructions. Iteration allows you to explore multiple perspectives, identify gaps, and discover new ways to communicate ideas effectively.

Refining prompts also helps align AI outputs with your natural speaking style. You can request variations to make language more conversational, test alternative ways of framing concepts, or ask for examples that feel relatable to your target audience. Each iteration gives you a clearer view of what works best, making preparation faster and less stressful.

Iteration encourages experimentation without losing control of your content. You learn which instructions consistently generate useful outputs and which need adjustment, helping you build confidence in the AI assisted preparation process. This means you spend less time stuck at the blank page stage and more time shaping ideas that feel authentic, engaging, and aligned with your message.

Creating Your Own Speaker Prompt Library for Reuse

A personal prompt library is a collection of prompts you know produce reliable, actionable results. By saving the prompts that work, you create a system that you can repeat again and again when you have a presentation to deliver.

Over time, this library becomes a toolkit that supports multiple aspects of public speaking. You can include prompts for generating outlines, exploring creative angles, summarising research, testing alternative phrasing, or identifying ways to make points more engaging. Each prompt acts as a mini framework for approaching preparation efficiently.

A speaker prompt library also allows for continuous improvement. You can refine prompts as your style evolves, your audience changes, or new AI tools become available. Your prompt library will grow as you become more comfortable using AI to help you with public speaking. The more you add to the library and use AI, the more it will go from being a random helper, to becoming a reliable assistant that can help you shrink the time it takes to prepare for public speaking.

Getting Started With AI for Public Speaking

Using AI for public speaking can feel overwhelming at first. With so many tools, prompts, and possibilities, it is easy to get stuck trying to do everything at once. The key is to start intentionally, focus on what adds the most value to your preparation, and build confidence gradually. AI is a support system, not a shortcut, and starting small ensures you get the benefit without adding complexity or stress.

Start Small, One Workflow at a Time

The most effective way to integrate AI is to focus on one workflow at a time. This might be drafting a Nano Speech, outlining a presentation, or generating ideas for examples. Pick one part of your preparation where AI can remove friction, and learn how to use it well there before moving to another stage.

Starting small allows you to experiment, see what works, and build a system that fits your natural preparation style. For example, you might begin by using AI just to generate Nano Speech variations for your openings. Once you are comfortable with that, you can expand to using AI for audience research or slide outlines. This approach prevents overwhelm and helps you feel in control.

Small wins compound quickly. Each workflow you master saves time and builds confidence. Over time, you develop a repeatable process where AI enhances clarity, speeds up preparation, and frees you to focus on the human elements of public speaking: connection, presence, and authenticity.

Combine AI Efficiency With Authentic Delivery

AI is powerful for efficiency, but it cannot replicate the human presence and connection that make public speaking memorable. Your goal is to use AI to handle thinking, organisation, and early drafting so that you can focus on authentic delivery when it matters most.

This means using AI to clarify your message, explore ideas, and structure content, but practising your delivery independently. Read your Nano Speech aloud, experiment with tone, gestures, and pacing, and refine based on how it feels in real time. AI should reduce friction in your public speaking, not replace the energy, nuance, or personality you bring to the presentation.

When you combine AI efficiency with authentic delivery, preparation becomes lighter, faster, and more intentional. You spend less time wrestling with ideas and more time rehearsing, adjusting, and connecting with your audience. This balance ensures your presentations are both polished and human, where clarity meets confidence without compromising authenticity.

TL;DR: The Ultimate Guide to Using AI for Public Speaking

AI can be a powerful assistant for public speaking, helping with preparation, idea generation, audience research, and presentation clarity, without replacing your personality or authenticity:

  • Use AI to generate ideas, outlines, and Nano Speech variations to remove friction from early preparation.

  • Conduct audience research and create personas with AI to ensure your presentations are relevant and tailored.

  • Apply AI tools for structuring, refining, and editing content while keeping your voice authentic.

  • Select a small, intentional AI stack for writing and visuals to streamline preparation and maintain focus.

  • Combine AI efficiency with real world practice and coaching to strengthen delivery, confidence, and audience connection.

Accelerate Your Public Speaking Skills With AI

Learning how to use AI for public speaking and actually applying it are two different things. To see real improvement, you need to integrate AI into your preparation, practice with intention, and build successful speaking routines. If you have made it through this ultimate guide, you are ready to take the next step and use AI to prepare more efficiently, stay organised, and deliver presentations with clarity and confidence.

Ready to start using AI to enhance your public speaking? Sign up for the free 5-day Effortless Public Speaking email course and get practical tips on how to become a better public speaking and deliver any presentation without stress.

Liam Sandford
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