Working with the AI Agent

The Dev Decks AI agent is not a template engine. It is a conversational partner that understands pitch decks, slide design, and business storytelling. The better you communicate with it, the better your deck will be. This guide covers the types of edits you can request, how to be specific, and the iterative refinement process that turns a good first draft into a great finished deck.

Types of Edits You Can Ask For

The agent handles four categories of changes. Understanding these categories helps you frame your requests clearly.

Content Edits

Content edits change what the slides say. These are the most common requests:

• "Rewrite the problem slide to focus on the cost of manual processes"
• "Add three data points to the market size slide"
• "Make the team slide emphasize technical expertise"
• "Remove the roadmap slide entirely"
• "Add a customer testimonial to the traction slide"

The agent writes real content based on what it knows about your company. If you provide specific data — revenue numbers, customer counts, market research — it incorporates them directly.

Design Edits

Design edits change how slides look without altering the content:

• "Use a darker background on the title slide"
• "Make the headings larger across all slides"
• "Add more whitespace between sections"
• "Use a two-column layout on the solution slide"
• "Change the accent color to orange"

Design changes can target a single slide or the entire deck. Be clear about scope — "Make all headings larger" is different from "Make the heading on slide 3 larger."

Layout Edits

Layout edits change the structure and arrangement of elements on a slide:

• "Move the chart to the left and the explanation to the right"
• "Stack the three features vertically instead of side by side"
• "Put the logo in the top right corner on every slide"
• "Use a full-bleed image background on the closing slide"

Layout changes are the most complex because they affect spatial relationships. Give the agent a clear picture of what you want — describing the layout in terms of left/right, top/bottom, or columns works well.

Tone Edits

Tone edits adjust the voice and style of the writing without changing the substance:

• "Make the whole deck more conversational"
• "Use shorter sentences on every slide"
• "This sounds too salesy — make it more data-driven"
• "Match the tone of our website copy"
• "Write as if presenting to a technical audience, not investors"

Tone changes are subtle but powerful. A deck written for seed investors reads very differently from one written for enterprise buyers.

Being Specific vs High-Level

Both approaches work, but they produce different results.

High-level requests give the agent creative freedom: "Improve the market size slide." The agent will decide what to change based on best practices — maybe it adds a TAM/SAM/SOM breakdown, tightens the copy, or adds a visual.

Specific requests direct the agent precisely: "On the market size slide, replace the bullet points with a TAM/SAM/SOM funnel chart. TAM is $12B, SAM is $1.8B, SOM is $200M." The agent executes exactly what you describe.

As a rule of thumb: start high-level for the first draft, then get specific during refinement. Let the agent make the initial creative decisions, then direct the details.

Iterative Refinement: Good to Great in 3-4 Messages

The best decks are built through iteration, not perfection on the first try. Here is a typical refinement flow:

Message 1 — Initial generation: "Build a 10-slide investor pitch deck for a pre-seed B2B SaaS startup in HR tech." The agent produces a complete deck.

Message 2 — Big-picture feedback: "The problem slide is too generic. Our specific pain point is that HR teams spend 12 hours per week on manual onboarding tasks. Also, move the team slide before the ask." The agent rewrites the problem slide with your specific data and reorders the deck.

Message 3 — Detail refinement: "Add our actual metrics to the traction slide: 47 pilot customers, $18K MRR, 94% retention rate. Make the competition slide a 2x2 matrix." The agent updates both slides with real data.

Message 4 — Polish: "Make the title slide headline punchier. Change the closing slide CTA to say we are raising $1.5M at a $8M pre-money valuation." The agent makes the final tweaks.

Four messages, five minutes, and you have a deck that would take hours to build manually.

Common Requests and How to Phrase Them

Here are the requests founders make most often, with effective phrasing:

What you want	How to ask
More data on a slide	"Add specific numbers to the traction slide — we have 2,000 users and $45K MRR"
Better storytelling	"Rewrite the problem slide as a narrative — start with a day in the life of our target user"
Slide reordering	"Move the team slide to position 8, right before the financials"
Visual improvement	"Use a chart instead of bullet points on the market size slide"
Audience targeting	"Rewrite this deck for Series A investors who care about unit economics"
Deck duplication	"Create a shorter 6-slide version of this deck for email follow-ups"

When the Agent Gets It Wrong

Sometimes the agent misses the mark. When it does, the fastest fix is to explain what is wrong and what you want instead:

• Instead of: "This is wrong"
• Say: "The market size is wrong — our TAM is $4.2B not $8B, and it should reference the Gartner 2025 report"

The more context you provide in your correction, the less likely the agent is to make the same mistake on the next iteration.

Ready to put these techniques into practice? Start building your deck at devdecks.ai/try.