good keynote presentation

👀 Turn any prompt into captivating visuals in seconds with our AI-powered design generator ✨ Try Piktochart AI!

• Piktochart Visual
• Video Editor
• AI Design Generator
• Infographic Maker
• Banner Maker
• Brochure Maker
• Diagram Maker
• Flowchart Maker
• Flyer Maker
• Graph Maker
• Invitation Maker
• Pitch Deck Creator
• Poster Maker
• Presentation Maker
• Report Maker
• Resume Maker
• Social Media Graphic Maker
• Timeline Maker
• Venn Diagram Maker
• Screen Recorder
• Social Media Video Maker
• Video Cropper
• Video to Text Converter
• Video Views Calculator
• AI Brochure Maker
• AI Document Generator
• AI Flyer Generator
• AI Infographic
• AI Instagram Post Generator
• AI Newsletter Generator
• AI Report Generator
• AI Timeline Generator
• For Communications
• For Education
• For eLearning
• For Financial Services
• For Healthcare
• For Human Resources
• For Marketing
• For Nonprofits
• Brochure Templates
• Flyer Templates
• Infographic Templates
• Newsletter Templates
• Presentation Templates
• Resume Templates
• Business Infographics
• Business Proposals
• Education Templates
• Health Posters
• HR Templates
• Sales Presentations
• Community Template
• Explore all free templates on Piktochart
• Course: What is Visual Storytelling?
• The Business Storyteller Podcast
• User Stories
• Video Tutorials
• Need help? Check out our Help Center
• Earn money as a Piktochart Affiliate Partner
• Compare prices and features across Free, Pro, and Enterprise plans.
• For professionals and small teams looking for better brand management.
• For organizations seeking enterprise-grade onboarding, support, and SSO.
• Discounted plan for students, teachers, and education staff.
• Great causes deserve great pricing. Registered nonprofits pay less.

10 Expert Tips to Create and Deliver a Killer Keynote Presentation

So you’ve got a keynote presentation coming up, and you’re hitting the books to make sure you’re armed with the best plan possible. Besides taking notes from all the greats on TED, you’re reading up about a message structure that works, and looking for the perfect template.

While it seems like you’ve got your bases covered, like all things in life, there’s always a way to streamline the planning process.

According to Aaron Weyenberg , the UX Lead for TED and a self-professed “master of slide decks,” and the wizards behind Apple’s presentation slides , there are a number of tricks of the trade that you can rely on to create a rocking keynote presentation .

Below are some of our favorites. And to easily create a professional-looking presentation , sign up for Piktochart . It’s free and it allows you to make beautiful visuals without being a graphic designer.

1. Do your slides last

While most keynote speakers will typically build their presentation around the structure of a template, Weyenberg says that “building your slides should be the tail end of developing your presentation.” Before working on your slides, you should put together your main message, structure, supporting points – then practice and time your presentation. The reason for this, he says, is that the presentation needs to be strong enough to stand on its own. Approaching a keynote like this requires a shift in thinking.

While a beautiful set of slides is imperative to your presentation, it should not be central to it.

Weyenberg said it best: “The slides are just something you layer over [the presentation] to enhance the listener experience.”

Observe these 2017 Google I/O keynotes, especially CEO Sundar Pichai’s – the role of the slides are to support what the speaker is saying – not the other way around.

2. Get creative with photos

Often times, presenters will be far too literal or cheesy with their image choice. Weyenberg suggests to use images that are simple, yet punchy – and pairs nicely with your spoken words. He says to look for photos that are:

• Related to your keynote’s concept
• Are not complex in terms of composition

3. Simplify charts and graphs

While most presenters will simply drop an image of their charts and graphs into their deck, Weyenberg points out that it might be a bit “unsightly.” If you need to use data to back a point that you’re making, you should make the extra effort to make it more attractive – and this can be done by recreating it in your presentation maker .

There are a couple benefits to doing this:

• It will make your presentation seem consistent and well-thought out
• You’ll have control over colors, typography, and more.

4. One theme per slide

According to the designers of Apple presentation slides, less is certainly more. Trying to cram too many ideas on one slide can only work to your detriment. Beyond ideas, the same goes for statistics.

Let’s play a little game: For the following idea, how many slides would you use? “The developer program is incredibly vibrant. We have over six million registered developers. Demand for this show has never been greater. We sold out in just over a minute [71 seconds].”

While the average person might think that 6 million and 71 seconds would belong on the same slide and be short and sweet enough, let’s compare it with what Apple’s CEO Tim Cook did.

He only leveraged two slides: The first said “6 million,” and the second: “71 seconds. Sold out.”

5. Create a visual experience with data

Taking a leaf again from Apple’s presentation book, once you’ve gotten the hang of having just one stat per slide – you should also make it as visual as possible.

One data point per slide, combined with it being visually interesting – is sure to be memorable.

6. Practice Really Makes Perfect

Imagine the late Steve Jobs, a legendary keynote presenter, still rehearsed for months before a presentation. According to Brent Schlender , one of the co-authors behind the Steve Jobs biography “Becoming Steve Jobs,” Jobs would rehearse and prepare “exhaustively” for all of his public appearances.

Despite being a natural on the stage, Jobs never would wing it, he came to the show well prepared.

“I once spent an entire day watching him run through multiple rehearsals of a single presentation, tweaking everything from the color and angle of certain spotlights, to editing and rearranging the order of the keynote presentation slides to improve his pacing,” remembers Schlender.

While you may not be a perfectionist like Jobs, you are likely also not nearly as good of a presenter as he is – so practice really makes perfect in this case.

7. Tell A Consistent Story

Circling back to Weyenberg’s tips – he suggests that in a good slide deck, every slide should feel “like part of the same story.” Think of your deck like a story – every slide should feel cohesive to the big picture message you’re trying to communicate – as opposed to random ideas juxtaposed together.

You can do this by:

• Using the same or similar typography, colors, and imagery across all slides
• Using presentation templates can help with maintaining the same look and feel

8. Less is more

We explored the less is more concept earlier in the article by suggesting you keep to one idea per slide. The same can be applied to text.

When it comes to creating slides for your next keynote, the cardinal sin is a slide with ample text that is verbatim of your spoken presentation.

What this does is encourage people to keep their eyes on your slides instead of listening to you.

Weyenberg also points out that a text-heavy slide forces the brain to multitask between focusing on what it’s reading and hearing – which is quite difficult and will compromise your presentation.

9. Consider topic transitions

While you want to make your slides look like a cohesive unit, you want to also keep in mind that making every slide look the same may be boring. Weyenberg suggests to:

• Create one style for the slides that are the “meat” of the message
• Then create another style for the slides that are transitioning between topics

For example, if your overall slides have a dark background with light text, you can use transitional slides that have a light background with dark text. This way, they’ll still feel like they’re from the same presentation family without being completely uniform.

10. Tell a captivating story

It is fitting that our final tip comes from likely the greatest keynote presenter of all time. The late and great Steve Jobs had the ability to captivate and inspire his audience with his talks, and that’s because he was a very good storyteller. And that’s the golden leaf that you can take from Jobs’ book today.

Always aim to tell a captivating story.

One example is perhaps when he introduced the iPod: “In 2001, we introduced the first iPod. It didn’t just change the way we all listen to music. It changed the entire music industry.” Listen to Steve Jobs weave a story about the digital music revolution when unveiling the iPod.

Bonus Round: Tips From Piktochart Designers  

• Always remember that your audience is sitting far away . So ensure that your title font size is large enough to be seen from a distance, and that your body text is no smaller than 20px.
• Use only two colors for your entire presentation – a primary and secondary color. If you must use a large color palette, your maximum choice should be up to five colors.
• Make sure that there is enough white space throughout your presentation . This will give your content room to breathe. Less is definitely more in this case.
• Emphasize only one object per slide – whether it’s an image, statistic, quote. This will make sure your audience stays focused.

Time to Make Your Own!

Other Posts

25 Green Color Palette Combinations (With Hexes and Name Codes)

How to Make Any Image Background Transparent

8 Best AI Banner Generators in 2024

Pro Speakers on How to Give a Perfect Keynote Presentation

Updated: January 13, 2021

Published: November 03, 2020

Two years ago, I was asked to give a presentation about my HubSpot article on emotional marketing . It was by far the most exhilarating and nerve-wracking experience of my professional life.

I don’t necessarily hate public speaking. However, leading up to the event, I felt the full responsibility of not only delivering a good presentation but also teaching the audience valuable , actionable information — and that was very intimidating.

I wanted to do a good job, and I wanted to be a good teacher.

Therein lies the importance of keynote presentations : to be effective, they should be educational and entertaining. Do you have a keynote presentation in your future? Read on for some advice from professional speakers.

First, what is a keynote presentation? Glad you asked.

You may also be tasked with a keynote presentation in order to secure funding, make a sale, or update stakeholders or executives. Whatever stage you find yourself on, delivering a keynote presentation is an important responsibility as a public speaker.

How to Give a Perfect Keynote Presentation, According to the Experts

I spoke with four professional speakers on how to deliver a near-perfect presentation. Here are five pieces of advice they shared.

1. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.

When it comes to public speaking, practice quite literally makes perfect. Every expert I spoke with mentioned how frequently they rehearse their presentations.

“However much you think you need to rehearse, rehearse 10 times more than that. When you show up to a concert, you expect that the musicians know their songs, and you certainly don't want the first time they try to play it to be right there on stage. You owe your audience and the folks hiring you to speak the same respect,” said Melanie Deziel , international keynote speaker and founder of StoryFuel . (She received this advice herself from Michael and Amy Port at Heroic Public Speaking .)

Provided by Melanie Deziel

As more presentations and events become fully virtual, the likelihood of technical difficulties also grows. Rehearsing your content can help you weather any interruptions or last-minute changes.

Rehearsal not only leads to content mastery; it allows freedom in your presentations. “The more you rehearse and become comfortable with the content, the freer you'll be to take chances, experiment, and truly focus on your delivery, rather than trying to remember what comes next,” shared Deziel.

How do these experts recommend practicing your presentations? “[Use] a mirror,” said Olivia Scott , keynote speaker and founder of Omerge Alliances . “I take the time to see how I'm being received, I look at my body posture, and I look at everything to make sure that I feel good about what I'm delivering. This isn’t exactly a tool or technology, but it's a way to practice and rehearse.”

Additionally, consider asking friends, family, and trusted colleagues to listen to your practice runs and provide feedback on your presentation.

2. Ask for feedback.

Speaking of feedback, expert orators know to ask for it on a regular basis — from friends, peer groups, mentors, audience members, and clients. “Find a support crew and connect with other speakers in the industry,” mentioned Karen Hopper , keynote speaker and data strategist at M+R. Hopper personally recommends Shine Bootcamp , which provided her with lifelong friendships, helpful feedback, and a priceless education about public speaking.

Provided by Karen Hopper

“We help each other with feedback on our pitches, topics, outlines, and presentations, and we celebrate each others' wins,'' said Hopper. “ ... It’s well worth surrounding yourself with people who will cheer for you and who will give you honest feedback — the fastest way to get better is to ruthlessly seek out that feedback.”

Clients can also be an incredibly helpful source of feedback. If you’re asked to speak at an event or conference, consider asking the people who hired you. “I ask my client for their reaction immediately after every presentation. It’s important to know how they felt, and whether the presentation achieved their goals. Every time my client is happy, that’s my most successful presentation,” said Jeff Toister , keynote speaker, author, and customer service expert.

Lastly, the best feedback often comes from the source — in this case, your audience. Whether you ask questions during your presentation (which we’ll discuss next) or ask for feedback following your presentation, it’s never a bad idea to know what your audience thought about your keynote.

Feedback may look different if giving a remote keynote presentation, but it's still possible.

“It’s been a creative challenge to adapt a talk I'd hoped to give in person to work in a virtual environment. It's much harder to tell how your talks are received online, without being able to see nodding and note-taking and hear laughter and clapping. But all the feedback I have received [over email] indicated that my talk successfully changed the way many people are thinking about their content idea generation process, and that was the ultimate goal of the talk: to change how people think ,” shared Deziel, referring to her recent keynote at Content Marketing World 2020.

3. Engage your audience.

Nobody likes being talked at . Sure, delivering a keynote presentation involves you doing most of the talking, but it doesn’t have to be a one-way conversation. Many of the experts I interviewed encouraged some sort of audience engagement or interaction to enhance your presentation.

“People love to be involved in a presentation. Rather than explain a concept to my audience, I find a way to have them experience it,” said Toister. “For example, when I share how multitasking hurts productivity and causes us to make more errors, I have the audience try a brief multitasking exercise so they can experience the problem themselves.”

Did you know that audience engagement levels drop considerably (14%) if a presenter does most of the talking, versus if the audience talks just as much? Moreover, 64% of people believe that a presentation with two-way interaction is much more engaging than a one-way presentation.

Presentation engagement also takes practice — just like your presentation content itself. “ ... Entertainment comes from the performance itself: the way in which you deliver that content and the energy you bring to that delivery. This is a separate skill you need to practice. Work with a coach, watch back recordings of yourself to identify opportunities to improve your craft, and watch videos of top-notch comedians, poets and other speakers to see what you can learn from them,” encouraged Deziel.

Lastly, as important as engagement is, don’t let technology stand in the way. While smartphones and polling software can make audience interaction easier, they can also get in the way of you connecting with your audience. “I prefer to just have people stand up, raise their hand, or clap to participate in the poll. It gets the audience moving, and I don’t have to worry about WiFi connections or whether the polling software is working,” said Toister.

4. Prioritize your content as much as the delivery.

While entertaining and interacting with your audience is helpful and exciting, it shouldn’t take precedence over your presentation content itself. “Nearly all of what the audience can learn from you comes from the content: the stories you tell, the examples you share, the facts you cite and the other information you explain. Carefully crafting those materials and testing it out ensures that the audience will get the information they were promised from your session,” said Deziel.

Tools like PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides, and Canva can help you hone your content and develop a story within your presentation. A 2018 Prezi study (another presentation tool option) showed that 90% of people believe a strong narrative makes for a more engaging, interesting presentation. Data can help form arguments and explain facts, but stories stay with your audience long after your time on stage.

Storytelling is yet another way to engage with your audience, especially by evoking emotions like humor. “It’s entertaining to ask questions, saying, ‘Can anyone relate to this? Has anyone ever had this type of experience before?’ and then getting them involved with some laughter around those experiences. Laughter always helps,” said Scott, who presented at INBOUND 2020 .

Hopper, who was also a Breakout Speaker at INBOUND 2020, agreed: “Don't be afraid to be funny or drop in jokes — there are studies that show that laughing actually helps your brain retain information better, so not only will your audience have a good time laughing with you, but they'll also get more out of your presentation. It’s a win-win!”

5. Focus on the audience.

Finally, everyone can agree that public speaking is either revered or feared. If you relate to the latter and find yourself nervous when giving presentations, turn your focus on the audience.

“Speakers easily get nervous when they focus on themselves and worry too much about their own performance. Focusing on your audience first takes the nerves away and redirects your attention to making sure your audience gets something of value from your keynote,” shared Toister.

That’s the goal of a keynote presentation — to provide value to your audience. Regardless of what story you’re telling, what tools you’re using, or how you’re engaging the crowd, as long as you deliver a presentation that inspires your audience to think differently — even for 30 minutes — you’ve given a perfect keynote presentation.

Note: HubSpot Marketing teams reserve the right to use guest blog author’s likeness across our content as we see fit, including but not limited to HubSpot’s social media channels.

Don't forget to share this post!

Related articles.

How to Create the Best PowerPoint Presentations [Examples & Templates]

17 PowerPoint Presentation Tips From Pro Presenters [+ Templates]

How to Write an Ecommerce Business Plan [Examples & Template]

How to Create an Infographic in Under an Hour — the 2024 Guide [+ Free Templates]

20 Great Examples of PowerPoint Presentation Design [+ Templates]

Get Buyers to Do What You Want: The Power of Temptation Bundling in Sales

How to Create an Engaging 5-Minute Presentation

How to Start a Presentation [+ Examples]

120 Presentation Topic Ideas Help You Hook Your Audience

The Presenter's Guide to Nailing Your Next PowerPoint

Download ten free PowerPoint templates for a better presentation.

Marketing software that helps you drive revenue, save time and resources, and measure and optimize your investments — all on one easy-to-use platform

Presentations that stand out. Beautifully.

With its powerful tools and dazzling effects, Keynote makes it easy to create stunning and memorable presentations, and comes included with most Apple devices. Use Apple Pencil on your iPad to create diagrams or illustrations that bring your slides to life. And with real‑time collaboration, your team can work together, whether they’re on Mac, iPad, iPhone, or a PC.

See what’s new in Keynote

Present your story. Your way.

Keynote sets the stage for an impressive presentation. A simple, intuitive interface puts important tools front and center, so everyone on your team can easily add beautiful charts, edit photos, and incorporate cinematic effects. And Rehearse Mode lets you practice on the go, with the current or next slide, notes, and clock — all in one view.

Start with a gorgeous layout.

Choose from over 40 eye‑catching themes that instantly give your presentation a professional look. Or create your own slide designs, background images, and page‑by‑page customization.

Create next-level animations.

Add drama to your presentation with more than 100 cinematic transitions and effects. Make your words pop by adding textures, color gradients, and even photos — with just a tap. And animate objects along a path using Apple Pencil or your finger on your iPhone or iPad.

Make every slide spectacular.

Add subtle movement to your slides with dynamic backgrounds. Illustrate your point with over 700 Apple-designed shapes, or add photos, videos, music, image galleries, and charts. Easily remove backgrounds from supported images and live videos or manually refine adjustments as needed. You can even use your iPhone to take a photo or scan a document, and Continuity Camera can send it straight to Keynote on your Mac.

What’s new in Keynote.

Learn about everything you can do in Keynote

Get the updates. Then get in touch.

Stay up to date when people join, edit, or comment in collaborative presentations and easily get in touch with your team using Messages and FaceTime.

Get more done on iPad.

Quickly insert objects, find settings, and get to your favorite tools with the customizable toolbar. And Stage Manager makes it easy to multitask across multiple presentations and apps at the same time. 1

Make backgrounds disappear.

Now you can more easily remove backgrounds from supported images — and even live videos — or adjust them to your liking.

Add live video feeds to any slide.

Appear in a window, right on your slides, with a picture-in-picture display during remote presentations. Or include a live feed of your iPhone or iPad screen to show off apps.

Get started with dynamic themes.

Start with one of three beautiful new animated themes, then customize it to set the tone for each slide with 18 adjustable background presets — from understated to highly visual, monochrome to colorful, calm to energetic.

Captivate your audience with dynamic backgrounds.

Make your presentation stand out by adding stunning color and visual interest to your slides. Create motion on a title or closing slide for a bold statement, and keep viewers engaged with subtle movement throughout the presentation.

Present with your team. Seamlessly.

For slideshows with multiple presenters, you can take turns controlling a single deck — from anywhere — on Mac, iPad, and iPhone.

Play YouTube and Vimeo videos right in Keynote.

Embed a video from YouTube or Vimeo, then play it right in your presentations, without the need to download or open the video in a media player. 2

Present over video conference. Like a pro.

Play a slideshow in its own window so you can access other apps while you present. You can view your presenter notes, upcoming slides, and navigation in a separate window as well.

Outline your presentation. Easier.

With outline view for iPhone and iPad, quickly jot down your thoughts, restructure ideas, and move concepts from slide to slide. Then switch to slide view and start designing.

Present like never before. From anywhere.

With Keynote, presenting remotely can be just as seamless as presenting in person. Say goodbye to saying “Next slide, please” — now multiple people can present together, even remotely, with each person taking control of their section of the deck. Add a live video feed of yourself to any slide for a picture-in-picture experience. Or when presenting on your Mac, include a live feed of your iPhone or iPad screen to walk through your apps. You can even play a slideshow in its own window, so you can simultaneously access your notes and other apps.

Any presentation. Any device. Anytime.

You don’t work in one place on just one device. The same goes for Keynote. Work seamlessly across all your Apple devices. The slides you create using a Mac or iPad will look the same on an iPhone or web browser — and vice versa.

You can also work on presentations stored on iCloud or Box using a PC.

Start using Keynote at iCloud.com

Create and present together. Even when apart.

Work together in the same presentation, from across town or across the world. You can see your team’s edits as they make them — and they can watch as you make yours, too. You can even get notifications when people join, edit, or comment. When presenting as a team, you can also take turns controlling a single deck from anywhere.

Use Apple Pencil when inspiration strikes.

Add color, illustrations, and handwritten comments for more beautiful presentations with Apple Pencil on your iPad.

Plays well with Office.

Teaming up with someone who uses Microsoft PowerPoint? Keynote makes it a great working relationship. You can save Keynote presentations as PowerPoint files. Or import and edit PowerPoint presentations right in Keynote.

Learn more about Microsoft PowerPoint compatibility

See everything that’s new in Keynote

• What’s new in Keynote for iPhone and iPad
• What’s new in Keynote for Mac
• Keynote for iCloud release notes

Additional Resources

• Get Keynote support
• Learn about Microsoft Office compatibility
• Learn about collaboration for Pages, Numbers, and Keynote
• Use Keynote in a video conference app

Keynote User Guides

• Keynote User Guide for Mac
• Keynote User Guide for iPad
• Keynote User Guide for iPhone
• Keynote User Guide for Web

Build spreadsheets that are bottom-line brilliant.

Create documents that are, in a word, beautiful.

• Pitch Decks & Investor Materials
• B2B Graphic Design
• Startup Consulting
• Trainings & Workshops
• Case studies
• Downloadable resources

17 Presentation Techniques For A Great Keynote

• Presentation design /
• Public speaking

How much time do you take to design your presentation? Days? Weeks? Where do you get your inspiration from and how do you find the right design elements? Wouldn’t it be fantastic if you could create a remarkable keynote presentation in a day or two? I think anyone can do it, if they pay attention to the following presentation techniques and manage to combine them in a way that helps them put the right ideas in the right context.

Also read:  7 Things To Improve In Your Keynote Speech Presentation

Achieving presentation flow is a challenging task. Not everyone has a knack for design. So pay attention to each of these ideas, both the simpler ones and the more complex, and make your own combo to improve delivery and convince your audience.

1. Visuals are your friend

Using different types of visuals can be a great way to help your audience remember and react. Photos, illustrations, icons, symbols, sketches, figures, and diagrams are much more easy for the brain to retain than words. Think of a company logo for example – how many times has your brain recognized the logo even before you remembered the name of the brand?

Another great thing about using imagery is that it makes you more charismatic. It seems that speakers are seen as more charismatic when otherwise identical speeches contain more imagery . Here’s a great example – a former US president’s inaugural address was rewritten to create low and high imagery versions in an experiment. The audio recordings of the two speeches were played for the participants to the study who were randomly assigned. After listening to the speech, they provided ratings on various summary leadership measures. The result? The speech with high imagery was attributed to a more charismatic person.

2. Keep the presentation short and to the point

Thousands of psychological, neurobiological and social science studies have been conducted on how humans “pay attention.” The famous Microsoft “study” claimed that the human attention span went from 12 seconds on average in 2000 to just 8.25 seconds in 2015, which is shorter than that of a goldfish. What most of these studies concluded is that, most of the time, we don’t pay attention. It’s just how our brain works.

Keep your presentation short and sweet and, more importantly, simple. Even if your ideas are complex, you need to find a way to help your audience focus and follow your speech. Make sure your slides are not too busy if you want the audience to listen to you instead of reading slides.

3. The rule of three

This is a rather well-known technique that’s based on the fact that people tend to only remember three things. When you design the flow of your presentation, work out what the three messages that you want your audience to take away are. Then, structure your presentation around them, using the right design elements to separate the three.

The same rule can be applied to an individual slide –  it’s recommended that you use a maximum of three points on a slide. Make sure that they aren’t bullet points or presenter notes. Those should not be on the screen when you’re doing a keynote speech. If Google’s CEO does not  use bullet points , neither should you.

Also read:  5 Pro Tips For Giving Better Presentations

4. Focus on telling stories instead of throwing numbers

Even if you have a technical or scientific topic to present, you still need to tell a story. That is the essence of a keynote speech, to be memorable, emotional, compelling. And that means storytelling.

Tell stories and anecdotes to help you illustrate your ideas and your research. This will definitely make your presentation more effective and memorable. In a UCLA study , students were asked to recall a series of speeches they had heard. Only 5 percent remembered any individual statistic, while 63 percent remembered the stories presented in those speeches.

“Things are not what they seem.” It’s that to get people to sit on the edge of their chair or to get them involved in your story, the audience has to constantly discover something new.

Howard Suber, UCLA

5.  Know what slide is coming next

Memorizing every single word in a presentation is not a good idea. That’s why you shouldn’t have chunks of text altogether. But knowing what slide comes next is a must. Even if you are an amazing speaker and you’ve been really busy so you’ve had the presentation made for you, go through it at least once before.

It helps to build trust and keep the audience engaged when you say “On the next slide [Click] you will see…”, rather than than act confused when the next slide appears. It will also help with the flow of the presentation.

6. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse

Practice is key for public speaking. Many experts say that rehearsal is the biggest single thing that you can do to improve your performance. This technique will make you so comfortable with the presentation content that you won’t need notes or prompts and you’ll appear conversational but knowledgeable.

Perform your presentation out loud at least four times. You can try something different each time: one in front of your friends or colleagues, one alone and one in front of a real scary audience, for good measure. You should also try to do a video recording of a rehearsal. It will help you spot improvement points, from how you are standing, if you are jangling keys, to how well your presentation is structured.

Also read:  Use These Presentation Apps To Rehearse Anywhere

7. Have an emergency plan

This does not include running off the stage. But it is a well known fact that something is bound to go wrong. It’s either the projector, the lights, the audio, the laptop, the fonts, etc. It’s always good to have a back-up plan. This way you won’t be blindsided, stressed and confused in case something goes off track. A useful tip is to check out the presentation room beforehand, so that you know what could go wrong.

Murphy’s kit: Have a printed out set of slides, data stick of your presentation and a laptop with your slides on it.

8. Involve the audience

One of the most powerful presentation techniques is inviting the audience in and have them contribute in some way. This will get them emotionally invested and it will differentiate you from inexperienced, nervous speakers.

Plan a inclusion of the audience in your presentation somewhere. It can be a slide with a question, a game or just an empty slide to help you connect with people and re-gain their full attention. Here are some ideas for audience activities–from a simple show of hands, to requests for brief personal input, to role playing and games, to small group exercises- and their merits:

The show of hands is good for polling the audience and gaining real-time feedback. It lets audience members know where they stand with respect to the group.Brief personal input reveals the diversity of experience in the room.Role playing and games are excellent for practicing sales situations and interpersonal responses.Group exercises allow participants to learn from each other.

9. Don’t read off the slides word for word

Please. Your audience is surely capable of doing that for themselves. They don’t need you to be standing in front of them reading off the screen.

Build your presentation in a way that it provides context for your speech, with visual elements and clear, simple ideas. Use your slides as outlines or conversation points that you build on, just like you would in a normal discussion. Experienced speakers often use slides to add a quick parenthetical note to something they’re saying to the audience.

10. Find the right speed

Most people go too fast. Mostly because they’re nervous or they’re pressured by the time constraints of the format. It’s really easy to rush through your content and speak very quickly, especially if you’re panicked. But it’s much easier for an audience to engage with your content and remember something if your delivery falls into a natural rhythm. Pace yourself and remember to punctuate your speech with pauses to emphasise key points.

Here’s a great exercise shared by Sims Wyeth , who learned it from Marian Rich, a voice and speech teacher in New York who worked with many famous actors to help them improve their vocal presence.

“The exercise will teach you that your voice is a wind instrument, and you must have ample air in your lungs to play it well.

Mark a paragraph / in this manner / into the shortest possible phrases. / First, / whisper it / with energetic lips, / breathing / at all the breath marks. / Then. / speak it / in the same way. / Do this / with a different paragraph / everyday. / Keep your hand / on your abdomen / to make sure / it moves out / when you breathe in / and moves in / when you speak.

Before you whisper each phrase, take a full bellyful of air and then pour all the air into that one phrase. Keep your throat open, and don’t grind your vocal chords. Lift your whisper over your throat. Pause between phrases. Relax. Then, take another full breath and whisper the next phrase. Whisper as if you were trying to reach the back of the room.

Once you’ve whispered the paragraph, then go back to the start and speak it in a conversational way, but again, pour all the air into each phrase and honor the silence between phrases. I can’t stress that enough. Take your own sweet time at the forward slashes.”

If you’re more of a slow talker, with a constant calm rhythm, you might run the risk of boring the audience. Keep people awake and interested by learning to increase your speaking speech without losing articulation and thought clarity. Start by learning what makes you slow. Record a one-minute monologue on tape and use a stopwatch or second hand; listen for the following types of slow spots.

11.  Include some humor

Humor can be one of the most powerful techniques for giving a great keynote presentation. You can use it in the beginning to relieve the tension in the room and help ease the transition into the bulk of the content. Appropriate humor that’s true to you let’s your audience get a sense of your personality and makes for a memorable presentation.

If you’re not a natural punster, do not despair. Anything can be learned. Here are a few techniques you can try:

Exaggeration: “Then I talked to a woman whose voice was so high only the dog could hear it.”Puns: “Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off? He’s all right now.”Self-deprecation: “And then, even though I knew it was too hot to eat, I bit into the pizza anyway. Because, clearly, I am an idiot.”Wordplay: “She brought me a plate of french fries instead. At least I thought they were French because they had an attitude and wore berets.”References: “Do. Or do not. There is no try.” – Yoda

12. Follow Guy Kawasaki’s 10-20-30 rule

Guy Kawasaki wrote that a presentation “should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points”. Although this was meant for entrepreneurs creating pitch decks, it’s a useful pointer for keynote speeches as well, especially from a design point of view.

Opt for a legible font and type size. Don’t use eccentric fonts that will make it impossible to make out the actual words. Stick to standard, easy-to-read fonts, preferably sans-serif (fonts such as Arial or Helvetica).

13. Pause from time to time

Both in your speech and in your presentation, white space is an important component. Whitespace is a fundamental building block of good design. Its one of the first thing any visual designer is taught. However, to many speakers it is simply a waste of space that could be used to better promote their message or express an additional idea.

Speech pauses allow you to punctuate your spoken words, giving your listeners clues as to when one phrase, one sentence, or one paragraph ends, and the next begins. Brigitte Zellner notes that pauses “participate in rendering human communication more intelligible. (…) In other words, pauses “stick out like sore thumbs”, and thus may occupy “beacon” positions in speech, serving to structure the entire utterance for both speaker and listener.”

14. Try some icebreakers

Why not reference some fun facts? Or have audience members introduce themselves? The most effective keynotes are both informative and enjoyable at the same time.

“For the brain to remember, presenters must deviate from a pattern in some significant way.”

Carmen Simon, co-founder of Rexi Media

Although not everyone is comfortable with icebreakers it doesn’t hurt to try one or two and see how they work for your keynote. Here are some different icebreaker ideas.

15. Make it thematic

Another out of the box idea is to make the most of an upcoming or recent event/holiday/movie release etc. and create a thematic presentation. Go for a memorable appearance, costume and all, and a well-designed presentation to accompany your speech. Get the audience to remember your presentation by connecting it to something they like or even dislike. The emotional connection will help spark a valuable conversation and it will increase the chances of people remembering your ideas.

Connections among elements in memory can make a real difference. Art Markman uses the analogy of a bowl of peanuts in his book Smart Thinking. He says that if you take peanuts out one at a time, you get three peanuts when you reach into the bowl three times. But, if you pour caramel over the peanuts, then when you pull one out, you get a whole cluster. After you draw from the bowl three times, you may have gotten almost all of the peanuts out. Memory functions in a similar way. By encouraging connections among the key points in your talk, you help pour caramel over the peanuts in memory and increases the amount that people remember from what you present.

16. Stay connected

Make sure you have an offering for the gods of social media. A tweetable bit on a slide, a hashtag to connect online and to encourage comments and debates or a website with online resources. Connect this technique with the one on involving the audience and you’ll get online engagement as well as offline.

Your “tweetables” should resonate with the audience and to do that they need to be catchy. Use strong verbs and keep it short. Think about what you want your audience to take away from your presentation.

17. Share your slides after the event

It’s nice to build a long term relationship with your audience. After all, they will be the ones ensuring your the growing reach of your ideas. Sharing your slides is a great way to help them recall the content of your presentation. It’s also a great way to encourage engagement after the event so don’t forget to include the date, time and title of the presentation as well as your contact details.

Let them know that you’ll be making the slides available from the very beginning of the presentation so that they don’t feel the need to spend too much time taking notes instead of watching you. But don’t share your slides before the presentation otherwise you’ll spoil the show and give people an excuse to leave without watching.

What are some other powerful presentation techniques that work for you?

If you’re looking to step up your public speaking game, check out these 10 easy steps to becoming a keynote speaker!

Download the free guide

Top articles

• Infographics
• Personal branding
• Pitch deck design
• PowerPoint tutorial
• Presentation design
• Uncategorized
• Visual communication

Sign up for our monthly newsletter

Nicely, participant’s beginning out make two Massive mistakes. One phrase utilized in Texas Hold’em POKER ONLINE is the flop. Some POKER ONLINE professional has opposite sights on the game.

I found this blog on google, wonderful!

Leave a Reply Cancel Reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Keynote Presentation Template

Use the Keynote Presentation Template to create impactful presentations that will keep audiences intrigued and engaged.

Trusted by 65M+ users and leading companies

About the Keynote Presentation Template

The Keynote Presentation Template gives you the perfect framework to create a professional presentation that will capture your audience’s attention and keep them intrigued and inspired throughout your speech.

With tons of customizable elements, it’s the perfect choice if you’re planning on creating an effective keynote address that people will remember.  

What is a keynote presentation?

A keynote presentation is a speech that’s given around a specific theme that sets an overall tone for the event. These speeches aim to reinforce, rally, or inspire the audience around a particular topic. 

Often, keynote speeches are given by well-known figures, celebrities, or people who are very accomplished in a particular field. While mostly used at political or industry conventions, this type of presentation is excellent for other events such as expositions and academic conferences as well.  

What should be included in a keynote presentation?

A keynote presentation should include: 

One main theme: The best keynote speeches are created with one main idea or theme in mind. Everything else in your speech is going to relate to this one theme. For example, your theme may be “Business in the Age of AI.” 

Content relevant to the audience: It’s vital that you know exactly who your audience is. What are their interests, views, and behaviors? Even more importantly, how can you connect with them and fulfill their expectations through your speech? 

Stories and experiences: Use the fact-story-fact method to keep your audience intrigued throughout. Stories and experiences are an excellent way to connect with your audience and make them feel like you understand them and their struggles. 

Interactive elements: Include interactive elements in your presentation to engage your audience. Ask them questions that stimulate their thinking and help them figure out how they’re going to apply the information you’re giving. 

A call to action: Simplify the keynote message into a CTA. A good keynote speaker will leave the audience with actionable methods to incorporate the message into their businesses or personal lives. 

How long should a keynote presentation be?

The best keynote presentations are between 15 and 45 minutes long. However, it all depends on the speaker and the type of event. 

Generally, the shorter the keynote speech, the better. This is especially true when the speech is given after lunch or dinner when your audience is tired and has a shorter attention span. It’s important that the keynote speaker stays within the time parameters — even if the event is running late and requires you to shave a few minutes off your speech. 

How to use the Keynote Presentation Template

Download Miro’s Keynote Presentation Template, to get instant access. Here are the steps you can follow to get the most out of the Keynote Presentation Template.

Step 1: Introduce yourself and the main theme/idea

You need to introduce yourself and the main theme of your presentation in the first few frames or slides. It’s important that you pre-frame your audience in this section. Get them to adopt a particular outlook or attitude so that they’re receptive to the rest of your speech. 

Step 2: Break down your content

You can divide your content into different segments to make it easily digestible. One way to do this is to have one slide per fact and a subsequent story. Keep the information on your slides minimal and concise.  

Step 3: Customize your slides

Design creative slides by customizing them with supportive images, vector graphics, infographic elements, color schemes, and other visual elements to suit your message. Creating a beautiful presentation and adding a personal touch to it can go a long way in connecting with your audience. It’s your choice whether a stylish or simple design suits your topic and brand best. 

Step 4: Deliver the presentation

Once you’re done including the information on your frames, you can use presentation mode for different slide options where you can move, remove, or add slides to suit the timeframe of your speech. Once you click “present,” you’ll enter the widescreen format where your frames will be shown full-screen. You’ll be able to easily move between slides by using the arrow icons or keys. 

What makes a good keynote presentation?

Here are a few tips you can follow to give a good keynote presentation: 

Rehearse your speech in advance

Don’t write an entire script. Rather, focus on giving yourself a few key points that you can flesh out during the presentation. This will help you stay focused and avoid any memory lapses while you’re on stage. 

Keep the slides simple

Use bullet points in your slides to limit the amount of time the audience spends reading them. This will keep the audience focused on you as opposed to your slides. 

Create a clear speech structure

Does your speech have a beginning, middle, and end? Each of your speech sections will include different segments or information that should have a specific aim. You need to:

Establish authority and grab your audience’s attention in the introduction . 

Make your arguments and show examples in the body of your speech. 

Sum your entire speech up and give a clear CTA in your conclusion . 

What makes a keynote speech different from other presentations?

A keynote speech is the principal presentation that introduces and sets the tone for an event. Instead of teaching the audience skills and concepts on a deep, experiential level — like you would in most training sessions and presentations — the audience is only required to become inspired and ingest the lessons of a keynote presentation.

How many keynote speeches are in a conference?

Most events have a single keynote speaker at the beginning of the event. However, sometimes there may be two keynote speakers — one at the beginning and one at the end.

Do keynote speakers take questions?

Keynote speakers do take questions. However, instead of taking questions at the end of the speech, they’ll usually weave in a moment for questions toward the end of the presentation and only then summarize and conclude their keynote with a final thought or story.

Get started with this template right now.

Marketing Proposal Presentation Template

Works best for:.

Presentations, Marketing

The Marketing Proposal Template is a simple outline you can use to quickly and easily structure your next bid for a project.

Logo Presentation Template

Presentations, UX Design

Make your logo ideas shine with the Logo Presentation Template. Use it to deliver logo designs, explain the thought process behind them, and show how they work in various contexts.

QBR Presentation Template

Presentations, Meetings

Use Miro’s QBR Presentation Template to give clients an overview of their business performance and show where you can add more value. Review your successes over the past 90 days and create a plan of action for the next quarter.

Training Presentation Template

Presentations, Education

Creating an engaging training presentation that effectively helps your employees level up is no easy feat. With the Training Presentation Template, you can slash presentation development time and spend more energy on the transformative elements of your training. Plus, it’s so easy to collaborate with other training staff when you develop your training slides in Miro.

UX Presentation Template

Create a stunning UX presentation with Miro’s memorable slide deck. Customize your slide deck to display your UX research in the perfect format for your audience. Add charts, images, and visuals to present your findings.

Simple Presentation Template

Presentations

Designed to remove the clutter and communicate the most important information in a clear and visually appealing way, our Simple Presentation Template will keep your audience’s eyes glued to the screen and their ears tuned into your voice — without having to add any fancy bells or whistles.

• SUGGESTED TOPICS
• The Magazine
• Newsletters
• Managing Yourself
• Managing Teams
• Work-life Balance
• The Big Idea
• Data & Visuals
• Reading Lists
• Case Selections
• HBR Learning
• Topic Feeds
• Account Settings
• Email Preferences

What It Takes to Give a Great Presentation

• Carmine Gallo

Five tips to set yourself apart.

Never underestimate the power of great communication. It can help you land the job of your dreams, attract investors to back your idea, or elevate your stature within your organization. But while there are plenty of good speakers in the world, you can set yourself apart out by being the person who can deliver something great over and over. Here are a few tips for business professionals who want to move from being good speakers to great ones: be concise (the fewer words, the better); never use bullet points (photos and images paired together are more memorable); don’t underestimate the power of your voice (raise and lower it for emphasis); give your audience something extra (unexpected moments will grab their attention); rehearse (the best speakers are the best because they practice — a lot).

I was sitting across the table from a Silicon Valley CEO who had pioneered a technology that touches many of our lives — the flash memory that stores data on smartphones, digital cameras, and computers. He was a frequent guest on CNBC and had been delivering business presentations for at least 20 years before we met. And yet, the CEO wanted to sharpen his public speaking skills.

• Carmine Gallo is a Harvard University instructor, keynote speaker, and author of 10 books translated into 40 languages. Gallo is the author of The Bezos Blueprint: Communication Secrets of the World’s Greatest Salesman  (St. Martin’s Press).

Partner Center

Ace the Presentation

Here’s an Excellent Keynote Speech GUIDE: With 2 Great Examples

You’ve probably been asked to give a keynote speech and you are afraid of it. Well, if you’ve never done this before, then there’s no need to panic. Thankfully, you’ve come to the right place. Let’s start with the basics, shall we? 

So, what is a keynote speech? 

Simply put, a keynote speech is usually given to set the theme of the entire event. It is a speech that is generally delivered by an expert, renowned and well-respected individual, depending on the theme of the event.

Being asked to give a keynote speech in front of a large audience can be a little intimidating. However, it’s the greatest honor to be selected as a keynote speaker. That said, you must deliver the best speech you possibly can. 

Now that we’ve covered what a keynote speech is, it’s time to key steps that you should take when preparing a keynote speech. 

Related Article: 7 Basic Elements of Public Speaking

How to prepare a keynote speech

Keynote speeches are very important. With that in mind, it’s one of the best opportunities for you and your business. Therefore, if you’ve been asked to be the keynote speaker, take advantage of such an opportunity. But, first, you will have to prepare your speech: 

1.     Find out the theme for the day

For any first-timer, you will probably be given the theme for the day by the event organizer. But if you are an experienced speaker, I’m sure everyone will applaud anything you say. All the same, both scenarios still require you to plan and organize your thoughts for your speech. 

2.     Outline your presentation

Sadly, most speakers always skip this part. And, it’s usually visible in their delivery and line of thought. The best way to handle this situation is by creating a sort of blueprint for your presentation which will include: 

• Highlight some of the key structural elements, for instance, introduction, conclusion, or even stories. 
• Highlight your key element in the presentation. What do I mean? Start by answering the question-what messages are you using to support your logical key point? 
• Link all the elements together in a systematic sequence
• Also, try mapping out the transition from one key point to the next and ensure that it’s flawless. 

3.     Now fill each section

Following your outline, use keywords to convey a clear message to your audience. This will also help in keeping the audience’s attention. On top of that, it will ensure you have a great flow of thoughts in your presentation. 

Write down the topic you’d like to present. Then go ahead and add principal keywords. Afterwards, write what you derive from each keyword. Thankfully, the structure of your keynote speech will give you a set of new keywords to follow. 

Make sure that you are brief and clear when filling each section. More importantly, don’t crowd up your content. You will also need to ensure you have most of the keywords in your mind. This will save you the time you use to check on your keynote speech instead of maintaining eye contact with the crowd. 

4.     Make the work visually attractive

Without a doubt, you should always ensure that your work has some visual ideas that would be easy to interpret. Add graphs or charts where necessary, but only where necessary. Too much of anything will lead to you losing the attention of your audience. 

5.     Add personal stories

Anecdotes and stories will assist you in illustrating your ideas to the audience. On top of that, it’s the best way to show your research. With stories, you should be able to capture the attention of your audience. Additionally, your audience will be emotionally invested which will differentiate you from nervous and inexperienced speakers. 

Play a game, add a question, or simply just maintain eye contact with your audience. This will help you gain their full attention throughout your speech. 

6.     Finally, rehearse

There’s no shortcut in this section. For you to present a killer speech in front of your audience without sounding nervous is through research. By rehearsing your speech several times, you can understand what it means to your audience and also see places where you can improve your speech. 

Actually, you can even record yourself while giving your keynote speech. That way, you will be able to work on your body language and speaking rate. If you have stage freight, this is a good way to avoid the effects of it. 

Now that you already know how to get ready for your speech, let’s take on how to open a keynote speech. 

The next points of discussion are: how to open a keynote speech, how long should a keynote speech be, and some great examples of keynote speeches. Before digging into that, let me add below some of the top related and interesting articles that can add to what you’re learning from this one. If any of the titles picks your interest, please click and open in a new tab, so you can check them out later. Enjoy!

8 THINGS YOU CAN DO TO ACE ANY JOB INTERVIEW

The happiness when receiving a call marking the job interview gives rise to endless anxiety. After all, it’s only a few minutes to prove your worth, impress the recruiter and seize the opportunity. However, to do well at the job interview, you need to think about what you will say, how you will present yourself,…

TOP 7 Core Interpersonal Skills in Leadership

At any time, a leader is seen as one who guides one or more people to fulfill something stipulated; today, however, we understand that this journey comprises the achievement of results and the evolution, in some way, of all who participate in the process. Leaders are people with high power to inspire those around them,…

An Easy Guide to All 15 Types of Speech

How to open a keynote speech?

I bet you are probably worried about your opening lines in your keynote speech, right? Well, first thing’s first, don’t be in a rush to speak. Before you open your mouth, the attention is usually high at this moment. Therefore, once you arrive up there, pause for a moment. To the audience, you will appear like you are trying to be confident and collected, so use that moment. 

The audience will lean in to try and hear your first few words. And at that moment, the audience will form their first impression of you with the first words you utter. An example of the first opening words include, ‘um, good evening everyone….I’m happy to be here in front of you. I will like to thank you so-so-so-so much…..’

Trust me if you start your speech with these words, the audience will feel like you are repeating words that will sound the same as the conversations they have been trying to avoid. 

To get the full attention of your audience, here are some quick tips on your opening statements. 

NEW PUBLIC SPEAKING BOOK LAUNCH!

Before we go into how to open your keynote speech…

I would like to announce that you can get more insightful tips and how-to’s from our recently launched eBook, now available at Barnes & Noble , at $4.99. We tried to pack it with valuable information and price it below $5 to be as inclusive as possible with our pricing. Click below and Get a Copy!

Key tips on the opening statement in your keynote speech

• Name someone central to your message
• Use a provocative question
• Use a short, pithy quote
• Start with a personal association
• Tell an Interesting and relatable Story
• Paint a picture with your words, and so on…

How long should a keynote speech be?

Usually, the maximum length of the keynote speech depends majorly on the skill of the speaker. Therefore, the minimum length of the keynote speech depends on how long the speaker will need to make an impact on the audience.

You will know when the keynote does not last long enough when the message said by the speaker doesn’t have a deep effect on the audience. Additionally, the length of the keynote speech depends on the time allocated to the event. 

Examples of Excellent Keynote Speeches 

If you follow the instructions above, you won’t even need examples to sharpen your skills. However, here are some of the examples you can check out to give you a deeper understanding of keynote speeches

• Fire Antony speech
• A speech by Briana Scurry

With these two examples, you will be able to draft your speech in no time. 

To wrap it all up…

A keynote speech is an incredible way to get over public speaking and be able to introduce yourself to the audience. It doesn’t matter the number of people in the gathering. Always remember to count every opportunity that comes your way. 

Also, a great speech is not one that strings different elements together-no siree! A great speech is one that weaves them in the minds of the audience in such a way that they are not able to tell the difference between the segments. The speech shouldn’t be repetitive or random. It should be something that you sat down and constructed to perfection. 

Give the audience something that they can remember you by. A speech that will make them concentrate on the best course of action. Someone once told me that, ‘words can change the world’ and I believe it. Now, this is your opportunity to change the world. 

REFERENCES & FURTHER READING

https://business.tutsplus.com/tutorials/what-is-a-keynote-speech–cms-31420

https://www.thebalancesmb.com/how-to-write-a-keynote-speech-2295879

Similar Posts

6 Solid Tips about Making Eye Contact

For most people, their first time addressing a crowd can be so scary and they tend to feel nervous or Jittery. My first time facing the crowd was quite an experience for me. I got on the stage and felt like I needed the ground to open up and take me in. One of the…

How to Analyze an Audience

Do you want to know how to effectively analyze an audience for your public speaking engagements or even work pitches? This skill is crucial in order to ensure that your message resonates with its intended recipient and we will teach you all about how to analyze an audience! To analyze an audience, be aware of…

Smooth Transition in a Speech – 69 Transition Statements

There are times when you listen to a speech and you wonder, how does the speaker relate these two things, or if he jumped topics and you felt completely lost. Knowing how to make a smooth transition in a speech will help you as a speaker to keep your audience engaged and on topic. Any…

7 Ways to Improve Your Verbal and Written Communication Skills

We all know how crucial communication is when it comes to getting ahead in life, whether we’re at school, work, or in our personal relationships. However, few of us are aware of the different types of communication skills – both verbal and written – that will make a real difference to how well we express…

DELIVER AN EFFECTIVE DEBATE AND SPEECH WITH THIS 5-STEP STRATEGY

Delivering a debate and speech is actually different from just writing your debate speech. This is why some people can actually prepare outstanding content for their debate speech and still not ace it, not because there was a lack of quality material but because the debate and speech wasn’t effectively presented.  A poorly researched debate…

Top 41 Famous Speeches IN HISTORY

Speeches have been empowering people for a very long time. They have uplifted the spirits of people and educated them on various topics. There are some famous speeches in history that are considered as one of the best.  Why speeches have such a profound effect on people and become timeless? There are many speeches that do…

• PRO Courses Guides New Tech Help Pro Expert Videos About wikiHow Pro Upgrade Sign In
• EDIT Edit this Article
• EXPLORE Tech Help Pro About Us Random Article Quizzes Request a New Article Community Dashboard This Or That Game Popular Categories Arts and Entertainment Artwork Books Movies Computers and Electronics Computers Phone Skills Technology Hacks Health Men's Health Mental Health Women's Health Relationships Dating Love Relationship Issues Hobbies and Crafts Crafts Drawing Games Education & Communication Communication Skills Personal Development Studying Personal Care and Style Fashion Hair Care Personal Hygiene Youth Personal Care School Stuff Dating All Categories Arts and Entertainment Finance and Business Home and Garden Relationship Quizzes Cars & Other Vehicles Food and Entertaining Personal Care and Style Sports and Fitness Computers and Electronics Health Pets and Animals Travel Education & Communication Hobbies and Crafts Philosophy and Religion Work World Family Life Holidays and Traditions Relationships Youth
• Browse Articles
• Learn Something New
• Quizzes Hot
• This Or That Game
• Train Your Brain
• Explore More
• Support wikiHow
• About wikiHow
• Log in / Sign up
• Education and Communications
• Communication Skills
• Public Speaking
• Speechwriting

How to Write a Keynote Speech

Last Updated: October 28, 2022 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Lynn Kirkham . Lynn Kirkham is a Professional Public Speaker and Founder of Yes You Can Speak, a San Francisco Bay Area-based public speaking educational business empowering thousands of professionals to take command of whatever stage they've been given - from job interviews, boardroom talks to TEDx and large conference platforms. Lynn was chosen as the official TEDx Berkeley speaker coach for the last four years and has worked with executives at Google, Facebook, Intuit, Genentech, Intel, VMware, and others. There are 9 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 106,583 times.

A good keynote speech is gripping and inspiring. It sets the tone for the event, program, or conference, and it can really unify the audience. If you’ve been invited to write and give a keynote speech (congrats!), you might not be sure where to start, or maybe you’re looking for tips to elevate your speech to the next level. Either way, we’ve got you covered! This article will walk you through how to craft a memorable keynote speech from start to finish.

Brainstorming Ideas for the Keynote Speech

• If there is a theme of the event, you may use this as your purpose or inspiration for the speech. For example, if the theme of the event is “Social Responsibility,” the purpose of your speech may be to explore your experiences with social responsibility on a professional and personal level.

• For example, if your audience is within an age range of 20-30 and are social responsibility advocates, you may make the speech light, engaging, and full of specialized language that you know your audience will understand.

• For example, if you are writing a speech around the theme of social responsibility, you may focus on three key points: the history of social responsibility, the current state of social responsibility, and where social responsibility is headed next.

• You can find the top keynote speeches of 2016 at https://www.bigspeak.com/best-keynote-speakers-of-2016 .

Crafting the Keynote Speech

• For example, if you are writing a keynote speech on diversity in the classroom, you may tell a story about a student of color that you worked with in your classroom as a teacher.
• You may also look in the news for a story about a student of color who publicly spoke out about difficulties with diversity in the classroom, preferably a news story based in your area or country.

• For example, if the purpose of your speech is to discuss social responsibility in the corporate world, you may open with a fact about how consumers tend to buy more if a brand is socially responsible.

• For example, your purpose may appear as, “I am here today to talk to you about social responsibility, the theme of this conference and the theme of much of my professional work.”

• For example, you may make a funny aside that is self-deprecating, such as, “I wasn’t always a great teacher. Sometimes, I was known as the fun teacher or the angry teacher. Not always the great one.”

• For example, you may highlight terms like “unity,” “engagement,” and “social consciousness” in your speech by returning to them at least twice. You may begin the speech by mentioning these terms and then return to them again later in the speech.

• For example, you may use a funny saying that you use with your students in your classroom in the speech. Or you may use less formal words and terms to keep the tone of the speech conversational.

• For example, you may have a call to action that refers to the story or fact you used at the beginning of your speech: “Just like my student who reached out to a peer in need, I ask you all now to be vulnerable, to try to reach out to someone in your community who needs help.”

Polishing the Keynote Speech

• When you read the speech aloud, notice if you skip over any words. You may be able to remove any words you skip over for flow.
• If you read the speech aloud to others, you can ask them for feedback. Ask them if they found any parts of the speech boring or hard to follow. Be open to getting constructive feedback on the speech so it is at its best.

• Correct punctuation is especially important if you are going to read the speech aloud to an audience, as the punctuation will tell you when to pause or take a breath. Often, a comma means pausing in your speech and a period means taking a short breath.

• If there is a time constraint for the speech, you should also time yourself reading the speech to confirm it is within the limit.

Expert Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/brainstorming/
• ↑ Lynn Kirkham. Public Speaking Coach. Expert Interview. 20 November 2019.
• ↑ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mitch-ditkoff/post_3868_b_1868754.html
• ↑ https://professional.dce.harvard.edu/blog/10-tips-for-improving-your-public-speaking-skills/
• ↑ https://www.toastmasters.org/Magazine/Articles/Six-Rules-of-Humor
• ↑ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffschmitt/2013/07/16/10-keys-to-writing-a-speech/#25d3cdba4fb7
• ↑ https://open.lib.umn.edu/publicspeaking/chapter/11-2-steps-of-a-conclusion/
• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/reading-aloud/
• ↑ https://www.unr.edu/writing-speaking-center/student-resources/writing-speaking-resources/editing-and-proofreading-techniques

About This Article

A good keynote speech is inspiring and can set the tone for an entire event. Start your speech with an engaging anecdote to grab your listeners' attention. The story can be from your own experience and should relate to the topic of the event. Then, tell your audience what the purpose of your speech is. You might say something like, “I am here to talk to you today about social responsibility, which is the theme of the conference and the theme of my professional work." Use a little humor and a light-hearted tone to keep the speech engaging and make it more memorable. Make sure to write the speech along the lines of how you normally talk so it sounds natural when read out loud. At the end of your speech, finish with a strong call to action. This part of the speech should compel listeners to do something to help the cause. For example, if you're giving a speech for a humane society, you may encourage listeners to volunteer at their local shelter. To learn how to polish your keynote speech, read more from our Writing co-author! Did this summary help you? Yes No

• Send fan mail to authors

Reader Success Stories

Habila Abrak

May 6, 2021

Did this article help you?

Abubakar Baba Bashir

Oct 22, 2017

Jacob Babarinde

Jul 3, 2018

Featured Articles

Trending Articles

Watch Articles

• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Do Not Sell or Share My Info
• Not Selling Info

Don’t miss out! Sign up for

wikiHow’s newsletter

12 Fun Presentation Ideas for Your Next PowerPoint Night

• The Speaker Lab
• May 22, 2024

Table of Contents

PowerPoint presentations aren’t always for boardroom meetings. Sometimes, they’re a great way to shake things up and have some fun. For instance, maybe you’re a teacher trying to come up with fun ways to practice impromptu speeches. Or maybe you’re in leadership and looking for a way to work in some team building exercises .

Whatever your goal, we have 12 fun PowerPoint presentation ideas for you to use. Whether you’re a seasoned pro or a first-time presenter, these themes are guaranteed to bring the laughs and make your night one to remember. No need for comedy chops or design skills—all you need is a dash of creativity, a bit of courage, and a readiness to have a blast.

How to Host a PowerPoint Night

If you’re committed to making this PowerPoint night a reality, you’ll first want to make sure you have the logistics sorted out before jumping into fun presentation ideas. Using our foolproof tips, you can ensure your PowerPoint party is a smashing success. From choosing the perfect theme to keeping the laughs coming all night long, we have you covered.

Choosing a Theme

First things first, you need to pick a theme. This will help guide your guests as they create their presentations. Choose a broad theme that allows for creative interpretation, such as “Unpopular Opinions” or “Conspiracy Theories.” This way, everyone can put their own spin on it and bring something unique to the table.

Creating a Presentation Template

In order to keep things cohesive, it’s a good idea to provide a basic template for your guests to use. Create a Google Slides template with a consistent color scheme and font. This will help maintain visual consistency throughout the night and make it easier for those who may not be as design-savvy to focus on their content.

Encouraging Participation

In some cases, not everyone is going to jump at the chance to create a PowerPoint presentation in their free time. That’s why it’s important to encourage participation. Offer incentives like a prize for the most creative presentation or a “People’s Choice Award” voted on by the audience. A little friendly competition can help participants engage more.

Sharing Presentations

When it comes to the actual presentation night, you want to make sure everything runs smoothly. Use a platform like Google Slides or Prezi that allows for easy sharing and collaboration. This way, you can seamlessly transition between presentations without any awkward lulls. And if you have friends who can’t make it in person, they can still join in on the fun remotely.

Remember, for each of these suggestions, they’re just that—suggestions. Based on the vibe and size of your group, you may want to tweak these suggestions to allow for more creativity and fun. If you’re not sure how to strike the balance between creativity and structure, just experiment and ask for feedback for your participants.

Find Out Exactly How Much You Could Make As a Paid Speaker

Use The Official Speaker Fee Calculator to tell you what you should charge for your first (or next) speaking gig — virtual or in-person! 

Fun Presentation Ideas for Your Next PowerPoint Night

PowerPoint nights offer a fun-filled opportunity to strengthen friendships while letting your imagination run wild . If you’re searching for inspiration for your next PowerPoint night, look no further. Below, we’ve compiled fun presentation ideas that will help your crew grow and laugh together!

Bucket List

Forget boring old bucket lists—it’s time to level up with this PowerPoint presentation. Gather your squad and get ready to share your craziest dreams and aspirations. Skydiving? Learning to cook like a pro? Finally writing that novel? Create a presentation showcasing your ultimate bucket list items and the reasons why they matter to you. Not only will it be a blast, but you might just inspire each other to start making those dreams come true.

Dog Breeds as People

If you’re a dog lover, then this one’s for you. Imagine if different dog breeds were people. What would their personalities be like? Would a chihuahua be the sassy, high-maintenance friend who always needs to be the center of attention? Would a golden retriever be the loyal, always-down-for-a-good-time pal? Compare different dog breeds to human personality types and get ready for some laughs—especially if you decide to create some art for your slides.

Celebrity Lookalikes

We’ve all gotten the “you look like so-and-so” comment at some point. Well, now’s your chance to lean into it. Have everyone find their celebrity doppelganger and create a side-by-side comparison slide. Bonus points if you dress up as your celebrity twin for the presentation.

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. A mood board, however, is the perfect way to express yourself without saying a thing. Design a mood board that represents your current state of mind, goals, or aesthetic. Incorporate images, quotes, and colors that capture the essence of your chosen theme. It’s like a window into your soul, but with way better visuals.

Social Media Profiles

Social media is a wild place. But have you ever wondered what it would be like if historical figures or fictional characters had their own profiles? Now’s your chance to find out. Create a mock social media profile for a famous person from the past or a beloved character, complete with status updates, likes, and comments that align with their personality. It’s like fan fiction, but with a 21st-century twist.

Fun Interactive Ideas for Your Presentation

There are plenty of fun presentation ideas out there, but what about interactive ones? Luckily for you, we have some in store. The best part is you don’t need a Hollywood budget or a degree in computer science to make it happen. All it takes is a dash of creativity and some smart planning, and you’ll be delivering top-notch interactive presentations in no time.

Childhood Photos

Liven up your next presentation with this interactive idea: request childhood photos from your audience beforehand. Incorporate these snapshots into your slides, and create a story that ties all of them together. Your audience will love the personal touch, and it’ll spark conversations and connections that last long after the presentation ends. Afterwards, you can even have people share the background behind their photo(s). Not only does this fun presentation idea allow people to share nostalgic stories, but it also gives people the chance to learn about the others better.

Unpopular Opinions

Another fun interactive presentation idea is to poll your audience on their unpopular opinions. This works especially well if you’re already presenting on a topic that people tend to have strong feelings about, like politics or pop culture. Create a list of controversial statements related to your topic, then ask your audience to vote on whether they agree or disagree with each one.

For instance, say you’re giving a presentation on social media marketing, and you decide to poll the audience on statements like “Instagram outshines Twitter.” In addition to engaging your audience, throwing in a few interactive polls can also help you gauge what they already know about your topic.

Conspiracy Theories

Here’s a pro tip: if you want to make your presentation unforgettable, then ask your audience about conspiracy theories connected to your topic. People love sharing their favorite theories, and it’s a fantastic way to break the ice and get everyone talking. Take those theories and run with them—you’ll be surprised at how much fun everyone has.

For instance, say you’re giving a presentation on media literacy. By asking people to share the wildest conspiracy theory they’ve ever heard, you can then break down the elements that made it seem compelling (even if it wasn’t true). You can then use conspiracy theories as a way to talk about the importance of critical thinking. It’s a fun way to get people thinking about how media messages are constructed and how to spot misinformation.

Here’s the secret to making interactive presentation ideas work: keep them on-topic and audience-appropriate. Quizzes and polls are awesome, but only if they drive home your key points. And here’s the really important part—have fun up there! After all, if you’re loving what you’re talking about, your audience will too.

Powerpoint Night Theme Ideas for Your Friend Group

When it comes to planning a PowerPoint night with your besties, the possibilities are endless. But sometimes, having too many options can be overwhelming. That’s where themed nights come in clutch.

Selecting a theme for your PowerPoint party isn’t just about limiting the scope of presentation topics; it’s a chance to inject more fun and originality into the event. It also provides a unique opportunity to strengthen your bond with your friend group by learning about their experiences and interests. Let’s take a look at some fun theme ideas for your next PowerPoint presentation night.

Favorite Memory

Take a trip down memory lane and have each friend share their favorite memory with the group. It could be a hilarious inside joke, an epic adventure you all went on together, or a heartwarming moment that brought you closer.

TV Characters You Relate To

We all have that one TV character that we see a little bit of ourselves in. Have each friend choose a character they identify with most and explain why. It could be a shared personality trait, a similar life experience, or just a general vibe.

Lessons Learned

Life is full of ups and downs, and sometimes the most valuable lessons come from the hardest experiences. Have each friend share a life lesson they’ve learned and how it’s impacted them. It could be a lesson about love, friendship, career, or personal growth. The key is to be vulnerable and honest.

Create a “Starter Pack”

Starter packs are a popular meme format that typically include a collection of items, traits, or experiences that are associated with a particular type of person or group. Have each friend create a starter pack meme that represents their personality, interests, or quirks. It’s a fun way to sum up who you are in a visual way and bond over your shared (or contrasting) starter packs.

The beauty of PowerPoint nights is that there are no rules. No matter which theme you choose, the most important thing is to have fun and let your creativity shine.

Free Download: 6 Proven Steps to Book More Paid Speaking Gigs in 2024​

Download our 18-page guide and start booking more paid speaking gigs today!

Tips for Making Your PowerPoint Night Memorable

If it’s your first time hosting a PowerPoint night, then we have some tips to make sure yours runs smoothly. We’re not just talking fun presentation ideas, but ways to make the whole event exciting and engaging. Let’s take a look at some of these tips.

Incorporating Music

A good playlist can set the tone for the entire night and keep the energy up between presentations. Consider creating a collaborative playlist ahead of time and ask everyone to add a few songs that fit the theme of the night. That way, everyone feels like they’re part of the process and you get a diverse mix of tunes.

Adding Humor

Of course, the most important element of any Powerpoint night is humor. The whole point is to make people laugh, so don’t be afraid to get a little weird with it. Encourage people to use memes, GIFs, and inside jokes in their presentations.

Encouraging Storytelling

Never forget the magic of a good story. The most unforgettable PowerPoint night presentations are the ones where the presenter opens up and shares personal tales and experiences. It’s an amazing opportunity to deepen your bonds with friends and create a warm, intimate atmosphere that brings everyone closer together.

At the end of the day, the most memorable PowerPoint nights are the ones where everyone feels like they’re part of something special. So don’t be afraid to get creative, take risks, and let your personality shine through. With a little bit of planning and a lot of laughter, your PowerPoint night is sure to be a fun one.

FAQs on Fun Presentation Ideas

What can i make a fun presentation about.

Dive into “A Day as Your Pet” or explore “If Historical Figures Had Instagram.” Keep it light and funny.

What is an interesting topic for presentation?

“The Science of Superheroes” hooks almost anyone. It’s cool, quirky, and sparks imagination.

How to creatively present a presentation?

Mix in memes, tell stories instead of listing facts, and maybe even throw in a mini-quiz. Engage your audience.

What is a good 5 minute presentation?

Pick something like “Weird Laws Around the World.” It’s snappy, surprising, and easy to chat about quickly.

And there you have it—12 fun presentation ideas that’ll take your next PowerPoint night to the next level. Whether you’re bonding over cringey childhood memories or debating the merits of your favorite conspiracy theories, these themes are sure to bring the laughs and create some unforgettable moments with your friends.

Remember, the key to a successful PowerPoint night is to let your personality shine through. Don’t be afraid to get a little weird, a little vulnerable, and a whole lot creative. Your friends will love you for it, and you might just discover a hidden talent for comedy along the way.

So what are you waiting for? Pick a theme, fire up your favorite presentation software, and get ready to wow your crowd with your hilarious PowerPoint skills. Trust us, your friends will be begging for an encore performance in no time!

• Last Updated: May 23, 2024

Explore Related Resources

Learn How You Could Get Your First (Or Next) Paid Speaking Gig In 90 Days or Less

We receive thousands of applications every day, but we only work with the top 5% of speakers .

Book a call with our team to get started — you’ll learn why the vast majority of our students get a paid speaking gig within 90 days of finishing our program .

If you’re ready to control your schedule, grow your income, and make an impact in the world – it’s time to take the first step. Book a FREE consulting call and let’s get you Booked and Paid to Speak ® .

About The Speaker Lab

We teach speakers how to consistently get booked and paid to speak.  Since 2015, we’ve helped thousands of speakers find clarity, confidence, and a clear path to make an impact.

Get Started

Let's connect.

[email protected]

Copyright ©2023 The Speaker Lab. All rights reserved.

Google I/O 2024 Live Blog: Gemini AI Features Are Coming to Many Apps

Google's Gemini AI is becoming a key feature in many popular Google apps, including Gmail, Meet and the upcoming Project Astra camera tool.

Gemini AI was the headline feature during the first day of Google I/O 2024.

Google I/O 2024 , the company's annual developer conference, kicked off Tuesday. Google's  Gemini AI  and its new integrations into applications like Gmail and Meet led off the conference, along with a look at Google's Astra project, which uses a camera to provide AI analysis. 

Gemini was Google's big push on the first day of I/O, with the company teasing that more Android 15 updates will be coming later . Gemini will certainly be a part of Android, with Google teasing its use as an assistant as well as an organizer.

More from Google I/O 2024

• Google I/O 2024: Everything Announced at the Keynote

At Google I/O, Gemini Really Wants to Talk With You

• Google's Gemini Assistant Pushes Android Into Its Next Phase

CNET's live reporting from the conference's keynote event is below, and you can dive into all our Google I/O coverage so far.

Everything announced during the Google I/O 2024 keynote event

• Google Offers Glimpse at Android 15 at Google I/O Today
• Google's Project Astra Looks Like a Road to Better AI and AR Glasses
• Google Ups Its AI Game With Project Astra, AI Overviews and Gemini Updates
• Google I/O: 3 New AI Features Coming to Gmail on Your Phone
• Google Photos Is Getting Gemini AI Search With 'Ask Photos'
• Google's Gemini Will Bring Richer Image Descriptions to TalkBack Screen Reader
• Google Unveils Music AI Sandbox Making Loops from Prompts
• Google's Image Generation Model Gets an Upgrade

And that's it!

Google has wrapped up its AI-heavy Google IO keynote presentation. In case you were wondering, Sundar Pichai revealed that Google mentioned AI 121 times today. That's a decline from the 140-plus times it mentioned AI during last year's I/O . 

At last, responsible AI -- but no training acknowledgment

Nearly two hours into Google I/O, Google offered up a segment on how it's responsibly using and training AI -- better late than never. It's actually using AI to train AI, in a process called Red Teaming. Google is also calling out the possibility that Imagen and other tools could be used to spread misinformation. It's spreading its SynthID watermarking capability to multimodality text and generated video, and will open-source SynthID. On top of that, Google will soon release a Responsible Generative AI toolkit for developers to "build AI responsibly."

Yet the company didn't touch on what data its Gemini tools -- which most of Google's AI products use today -- are trained on. Google's responsibility is focused on what's created using its tools, not what creations are used by its tools.

Gemini listening in to warn you about scams

A new feature that's in testing uses Gemini to warn you about potential scam calls. On stage, Google showed how it listens in to your calls. In the demo, when the caller asked to shadily transfer money to a new account, an alert popped up on screen that the call was likely a scam. Given that analysis stays on the device, it's more secure, and could protect people when scammers use phishing tactics like scaring and pressuring them to choose quickly. This builds on Google I/O presentations of yesteryear of tech that acts like a concierge to screen calls and make restaurant reservations. 

Android 15 updates are coming tomorrow

Android 15 gets a tease at Google I/O 2024.

Looking for what'll be new in Android 15? That won't be coming today. Despite all the Gemini-in-Android talk during the keynote presentation, Android 15 is still coming and Google will indeed talk about it at IO -- just not today. Google will instead be detailing its next update for its mobile software tomorrow. Stay tuned. 

Gemini scam alerts

Google touts Gemini scam alerts.

Circle to Search is expanding to more Android devices

Google's Circle to Search feature is readily available on 100 million Android devices. Now Google says it plans to double the amount of devices that can access the feature to 200 million by the end of the year. 

AI at Android's core

Gemini's Chip is a 'virtual powered teammate'

There's a new Slackbot in town. The Gemini-powered "virtual teammate," called Chip, can be integrated into your work chat to check on things and surface topics buried in months and years of conversations. On stage, Google demonstrated how someone asked Chip about the progress of a work project, and the chatbot found who talked about it last and intuited its status. This could be helpful, as work chat search functions are iffy at best. Let's just hope it doesn't hallucinate that you were responsible for a task that hadn't actually been assigned... and then go tell your boss.

Google Gemini gets smarter in Android

Google announced an upgrade to its Gemini virtual assistant at Google I/O.

There's a lot of Gemini news at Google I/O, and that includes how its presence on Android will change. Gemini will be able to understand more context about the app you're using, meaning it can answer questions about the video you're watching on YouTube or generate images that can be dragged and dropped directly into Google Messages or Gmail. It's a sign that Google wants AI to play a bigger role in Android. 

Until this point, a lot of the generative AI features we've seen on phones have been targeted at very specific tasks, like editing an image or translating a conversation. But this Gemini update points to a future in which AI changes the way we use our phones on a more fundamental level. Read more about it in my full story . 

Gemini is boosting accessibility features

Google is using AI to offer richer image descriptions in its TalkBack screen reader.

Google will leverage Gemini Nano to bring richer and clearer image descriptions to its TalkBack screen reader . TalkBack reads aloud what's on a screen and helps blind and low-vision users navigate their devices using custom gestures and voice commands. Now Gemini can offer more details about what's being shown in an image or an online product listing. In a blog post, Google shared an example showing a dress, for which TalkBack generated the description, "A close-up of a black and white gingham dress. The dress is short, with a collar and long sleeves. It is tied at the waist with a big bow."

Google Gemini is now very conversational. With Gemini Live, you can have a natural-sounding conversation with Gemini, even interrupting it midsentence. Google says Gemini will also be more capable, allowing users to post massive amounts of text for analysis. You can read my full story about a wide range of Gemini announcements . 

Gmail's Smart Reply is getting smarter

Google's Smart Reply feature for Gmail is showcased at Google I/O 2024.

Suggestions for email replies have been a part of Gmail, but now Google has revealed that it'll soon be able to reply with customized answers based on the context it gleaned from the email thread. 

Google's new AI Search features will be rolling out 'in the coming weeks'

You won't have to wait long to try Google's latest AI-based Search. The company says it'll be rolling out some of these new features "in the coming weeks," with eager users able to access them first by opting into Search Labs.

Search with video

Dude, where's my responsible AI?

Forty-five minutes in and we've heard "AI" dozens of times, but there's been nary a mention of how Google is building these tools and models responsibly. Where will the new tool Veo source the material it's basing new generated videos on? What about the audio tools? And how will the artists who made the content that's fed into models be compensated? Full details can wait until after the keynote presentation, but it's telling that Google hasn't even had a throwaway line about using AI responsibly.

Diving into Google Search

AI has dominated Google I/O during the first 45 minutes, and now we're focusing on how AI and Gemini will be impacting Search. Google says it's adding "multistep reasoning" into search so you can submit multiple questions in one search and have AI put everything together. 

Search in the Gemini era

Veo generative video

Veo generative video. 

Project Astra is Google's Gemini answer to ChatGPT

OpenAI's ChatGPT-4o made waves on Monday for its AI assistant that seemed to eerily mimic Scarlett Johansson in the movie Her. Google's latest update to its Project Astra appears to be its answer for a multimodal version of Gemini that can be helpful. In a demo video, the company shows the AI recognizing content in a video and accurately answering questions and identifying subjects. 

Google says the Gemini app will be getting some of these experiences later this year. 

We’re sharing Project Astra: our new project focused on building a future AI assistant that can be truly helpful in everyday life. 🤝 Watch it in action, with two parts - each was captured in a single take, in real time. ↓ #GoogleIO pic.twitter.com/x40OOVODdv — Google DeepMind (@GoogleDeepMind) May 14, 2024

Google DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis presents onstage at I/O.

Project Astra

Project Astra discussed at I/O.

More like Google A/I, am I right?

Gemini's ask-and-response interface.

We knew Google was going to lean into AI at I/O, but we're minutes into the keynote presentation and its generative AI tool Gemini has been demonstrated to give nuanced and context-sensitive responses to everything from searches to responding to questions so naturally it looks like a conversation. From here, everything we see today could have AI involved in the output.

Google touts AI Agents.

Google Gemini can summarize Gmails

Gemini is getting integrated into more Google apps.

Google is bringing its Gemini AI to its Workspace apps like Gmail and Google Meet, where it can perform tasks like going through a series of emails from a school and summarizing the key points to save you time and catch you up.  

Google Meet meeting summaries using AI

Google Meet meeting summaries using AI.

Google will begin rolling out AI Overviews in search

Google search in the United States is going to be getting more AI-driven results. The new feature is coming to the US first, but will be rolling out to other countries "soon." 

AI Overviews

Google ceo sundar pichai.

And we're off

CEO Sundar Pichai has hit the stage and Google I/O is officially underway. Pichai describes I/O as "Google's version of the Eras Tour" and says the company is now in its "Gemini Era." Get ready for a lot of AI talk. 

The Google I/O stage

Ahead of the conference start, the Google I/O 2024 stage features a rainbow background and a DJ.

We're taking our seats at Google I/O 2024 and as we wait for the conference to start, a DJ is playing music ahead of the event.

Don't buy a Pixel 7A before Google I/O

Google announced the Pixel 8A last week, a follow-up to last year's Pixel 7A. But there's a problem. The Pixel 8A costs $499 and Google still sells the 1-year-old Pixel 7A for $499. Please don't buy a Pixel 7A unless it's discounted. My guess is that Google will eventually drop the price of the Pixel 7A -- either during Google I/O this week or when the Pixel 8A is available in stores. But if you were planning on dropping $500 on a Pixel 7A and didn't know about the Pixel 8A, then congrats: You got an easy upgrade to something newer and shinier without having to spend a penny more.

Will Google tease the Pixel 9?

The Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro appear to have leaked. 

Google hasn't gone big on new hardware at IO in recent years, but it does occasionally use its flagship developer conference to tease its hardware plans more officially . Google's Pixel division is notorious for leaks, and just the other day hands-on images and details of what appears to be the forthcoming Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro XL appeared on Russian website Rozetked . According to the outlet the Pixel 9 will sport a 6.24-inch display, the 9 Pro will bump that to 6.34-inches and the 9 Pro XL will jump up to 6.73-inches. All three will be AMOLED displays and support 120Hz refresh rates, as well as rock some new rear camera designs.

Will Google make the phones official on Tuesday? We'll find out soon enough. 

Marc Rebillet at Google I/O 2024

Marc Rebillet at Google I/O 2024.

The CNET team on site for Google I/O 2024

The CNET team on site for Google I/O 2024.

Shoreline Amphitheatre for Google I/O 2024

Pixel Tablet: 1 year later

It's been a year since Google I/O 2023 and the debut of the  Pixel Tablet , a digital slate that, with its quad-speaker charging dock, is intended to cater to folks who want something more advanced than an Echo Show in their home. We gave the tablet top marks, and though there's been no hint that Google will follow up with another tablet at Google I/O 2024, perhaps there's a software update in store.

Google I/O breakfast time

Ahead of Google I/O's start, the conference is providing attendees with a breakfast table.

Google I/O 2024 is providing attendees with a breakfast before the conference kicks off. This includes matcha croissants and muffins.

Using AI to boost digital accessibility

Google could use the week of I/O to unveil some digital accessibility updates, since Global Accessibility Awareness Day this year falls two days later, on May 16. The company has recently rolled out features like Guided Frame , which helps blind and low-vision Pixel users take selfies. It's also launched apps like Magnifier , which makes it easier to see small text and objects, and added AI image descriptions to its Lookout app, which helps people who are blind or low-vision identify objects and read documents. It's likely Google will continue to use AI to boost digital accessibility across more products and services, showcasing the "good" the rapidly developing tech can usher in.

Wear OS 5 coming? But we might not hear about it at Google I/O

While the 2021 release of Wear OS 3 -- a combined effort between Google and Samsung -- promised a new era for non-Apple smartwatches, updates have been somewhat sparse with Wear OS 4 coming last year alongside the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 featuring a handful of improvements. But a rumor says that the upcoming Galaxy Watch 7's chip is running software referred to as Wear OS 5, according to 9to5Google . It's unclear if it'll properly debut at Google I/O 2024, as Google sometimes waits to reveal Wear OS news until the smartwatches running them debut.

Android 15: What's in store?

At Google I/O 2024, we expect to see a lot more about Android 15 , the next big software update for Android phones. It's already available for developers and early adopters with Pixel phones to try out in beta, and we've seen its improvements on productivity, privacy and security, including archiving apps to free up space on your phone and more support for satellite connectivity. Google I/O is when we'll hear about many other ways the Android experience will change.

Gemini in focus at I/O

Google has invested heavily in Gemini, its generative AI platform -- and it will hardly be surprising if Gemini features in a big way at Google I/O. Google could even go as far as showing off an entirely new version of Gemini. The search giant will seek to prove its superiority over competitors like Microsoft and OpenAI, which on Monday unveiled a major update to GPT-4 that it showed can detect human emotion and also offer information in real time. But if a brand new Gemini doesn't make a debut at I/O, at the very least we can probably expect some generative AI updates for major Google products such as Android, Maps or Search.

Pixel hardware not likely

Software is usually the focus of Google I/O, but Google surprised us with a few hardware teases in recent years, such as the Pixel Fold last year and the Pixel Watch in 2022. But given the company's laser focus on AI over the past year, I'd be surprised if it carved out time for new hardware announcements, especially since it introduced the Pixel 8A just before I/O. Instead, we'll probably hear more about AI updates to services like Search, Maps, Gmail, Docs and the Gemini virtual assistant. Google usually saves major Pixel product announcements for the fall.

More AI on Android phones

Last year, Google provided a glimpse into how generative AI could surface on Android phones by announcing features such as Magic Compose (for rewriting text messages in a different tone) and AI wallpapers. A lot has changed since then; from Circle to Search to new translation features and photo editing tools like Magic Editor , our phones have gotten a big dose of AI over the past year. I wonder if Google will introduce new features, or perhaps announce expansions for current tools like Circle to Search

Google Assistant's future

Google Assistant was noticeably absent from last year's Google I/O, which I found odd , considering so much of the event was focused on AI. In 2024, Google has seemingly been focusing its resources on its new Gemini assistant, which makes me wonder whether it will eventually phase out Assistant altogether. Either way, I'll be looking for clues about Google Assistant's future based on how the company positions it – or ignores it – at Google I/O. 

Will we see a Pixel Tablet 2?

There's a USB-C port on the Pixel Tablet, even though the dock charges with its own proprietary plug and pin connector.

Google's affordable-ish Pixel Tablet , which debuted at last year's Google I/O, was the company's return to the large-screen format. After ceding ground to Apple's iPad, Samsung was largely holding down the premium Android tablet fort, doing the best it could without Google's full support. But Google's re-entry to the tablet market put some much needed fuel in Android's smoldering tablet ecosystem. Now, ideally, Google would want to keep that momentum going with a followup to last year's Pixel Tablet with a Pixel Tablet 2, right? It does seem, however, that we won't be seeing a new Pixel Tablet at I/O this year. 

Ahead of the Pixel Tablet's launch last year, there was a steady stream of rumors flowing into the mouths of Android's acolytes. Leak upon leak all but suggested a tablet was on its way. However, there hasn't been nearly the same flood of rumors for the Pixel Tablet 2 as there was for the first. Other than a codename mentioned in a beta Android 14 update, we haven't seen any design leaks or third-party case designs hit the web. Either Google's doing an unusually good job of keeping the Pixel Tablet 2 under wraps, or it doesn't have anything to show at this year's I/O. 

Google I/O 2024: Here’s everything Google just announced

It’s that moment you’ve been waiting for all year: Google I/O keynote day! Google kicked off its developer conference each year with a rapid-fire stream of announcements, including many unveilings of recent things it’s been working on. Brian already kicked us off by sharing what we are expecting .

Since you might not have had time to watch the whole two-hour presentation Tuesday, we took that on and delivered quick hits of the biggest news from the keynote as they were announced, all in an easy-to-digest, easy-to-skim list.

Google I/O takeaways

It was an ai evolution, not revolution.

The company made its case to developers — and to some extent, consumers — why its bets on AI are ahead of rivals. At the event, the company unveiled a revamped   AI-powered search engine , an AI model with  an expanded context window of 2 million tokens , AI helpers across its suite of  Workspace  apps, like  Gmail , Drive and Docs, tools to integrate its AI into  developers’ apps  and even a future vision for AI, codenamed  Project Astra , which can respond to sight, sounds, voice and text combined. 

While each advance on its own was promising, the onslaught of AI news was  overwhelming . Though obviously aimed at developers, these big events are also an opportunity to wow end users about the technology. But after the flood of news, even somewhat tech-savvy consumers may be asking themselves, wait, what’s  Astra  again? Is it the thing powering  Gemini Live ? Is Gemini Live sort of like Google  Lens ? How is it different from  Gemini Flash ? Is Google  actually making AI glasses  or is that  vaporware ? What’s  Gemma , what’s  LearnLM …what are  Gems ? When is Gemini coming to your  inbox , your  docs ? Read more

The top new AI products and features unveiled

From generative AI to accessibility, Kyle Wiggers takes you on a journey of all of Google’s AI announcements. Read more

Privacy concerns over AI voice call scans

Google showcased a demo of a call scam detection feature during I/O, which it says will be added to a future version of Android. The feature scans voice calls as they’re happening with AI, which effectively is client-side scanning, which has already sparked such a backlash on iOS that Apple abandoned its plans to adopt it in 2021. And as expected, a number of privacy advocates and experts voiced concerns over Google’s use of the technology, which they say could swiftly expand beyond applying just to scams and be used in more malicious ways. Read more

Updated security features

On Wednesday, Google announced it is adding new security and privacy protections to Android, including on-device live threat detection to catch malicious apps, new safeguards for screen sharing, and better security against cell site simulators.

The company said it is increasing the on-device capability of its Google Play Protect system to detect fraudulent apps trying to breach sensitive permissions. It also uses AI to detect if apps are trying to interact with other services and apps in an unauthorized manner.

Google said if the system is certain about malicious behavior, it disables the app automatically. Otherwise, it alerts the company for a review and then alerts users. Read more

And to protect devices in the real world, Google also announced Theft Detection Lock , an AI-powered addition that identifies motion commonly associated with theft, like a swift movement in an opposite direction. Once detected, the phone screen automatically locks, preventing future usage of the device without clearing whatever safeguards you’ve put in place. Read more

Google worked its Gemini into its Google TV smart TV operating system so it can generate descriptions for movies and TV shows. When a description is missing on the home screen, the AI will fill it in automatically to ensure that viewers never have to wonder what a title is about. It’ll also translate descriptions into the viewer’s native language, making the content more discoverable to a wider audience. The best part? The AI-generated descriptions are also personalized based on a viewer’s genre and actor preferences. Read more

Private Space feature

Now here’s a fun one. Private Space is a new Android feature that lets users silo a portion of the operating system for sensitive information. It’s a bit like Incognito mode for the mobile operating system, sectioning designated apps into a “container.”

The space is available from the launcher and can be locked as a second layer of authentication. Apps in Private Space will be hidden from notifications, settings and recents. Users can still access the apps through a system sharesheet and photo picker in the main space, so long as the private space has been unlocked.

Developers can play around with it now, but there is a caveat — there is a bug. Google says it expects to address the bug in the coming days. Read more

Google Maps gets geospatial AR

Google Maps users will soon have a new layer of content on their phones — they will have access to geospatial augmented reality content. The feature will first appear in Singapore and Paris as part of a pilot program launching later this year.

Users will be able to access the AR content by first searching for a location in Google Maps. If the location has AR content and the user is near the place, they will have to tap on the image that says “AR Experience” and then lift their phone. 

If someone is exploring a place remotely, they can see the same AR experience in Street View. After exploring the AR content, users can share the experience through a deep link URL or QR code on social media. Read more

Google gave a developer preview of the new version of its smartwatch operating system, Wear OS 5. The latest release focuses on improved battery life and other performance improvements, like more efficient workout tracking. Developers are also getting updated tools for creating watch faces, as well as new versions of Wear OS tiles and Jetpack Compose for building watch apps. Read more

TechCrunch Minute

As we note all over this post, the Google I/O developer conference came with a big dose of AI. See how Anthony Ha summed it up Wednesday. Read more

Even Elon Musk took note

👌 https://t.co/I83VTEPBMy — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 15, 2024

“Web” search filter

We’ve launched a new “Web” filter that shows only text-based links, just like you might filter to show other types of results, such as images or videos. The filter appears on the top of the results page alongside other filters or as part of the “More” option, rolling out today… pic.twitter.com/tIUy9LNCy5 — Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 14, 2024

Google introduced a new way to filter for just text-based links. The new “Web” filter appears at the top of the results page and enables users to filter for text links the way they can today filter for images, video, news or shopping.

As Sarah Perez reports, the launch is an admission that sometimes people will want to just surface text-based links to web pages, aka the classic blue links, that today are often of secondary importance as Google either answers the question in its informational Knowledge Panels or, now, through AI experiments. Read more

Firebase Genkit

There’s a new addition to the Firebase platform, called Firebase Genkit, that aims to make it easier for developers to build AI-powered applications in JavaScript/TypeScript, with Go support coming soon. It’s an open source framework, using the Apache 2.0 license, that enables developers to quickly build AI into new and existing applications.

Some of the use cases for Genkit the company is highlighting Tuesday include many of the standard GenAI use cases: content generation and summarization, text translation and generating images. Read more

AI ad nauseam

Of course Google used Gemini to count AI mentions during today's AI-filled #GoogleIO . And there was even one more after this. pic.twitter.com/ajL7JYPQVE — TechCrunch (@TechCrunch) May 14, 2024

Tuesday’s Google I/O ran for 110 minutes, but Google managed to reference AI a whopping 121 times during (by its own count) the event. CEO Sundar Pichai referenced the figure to wrap up the presentation, cheekily stating that the company was doing the “hard work” of counting for us. Again, it was no surprise — we were ready for it. Read more

Generative AI for learning

Also today, Google unveiled LearnLM, a new family of generative AI models “fine-tuned” for learning. It’s a collaboration between Google’s DeepMind AI research division and Google Research. LearnLM models are designed to “conversationally” tutor students on a range of subjects, Google says.

Though it is already available on several of Google’s platforms, the company is taking LearnLM through a pilot program in Google Classroom. It is also working with educators to see how LearnLM might simplify and improve the process of lesson planning. LearnLM could help teachers discover new ideas, content and activities, Google says, or find materials tailored to the needs of specific student cohorts.  Read more

Quiz master

Speaking of education, new to YouTube are AI-generated quizzes. This new conversational AI tool allows users to figuratively “raise their hand” when watching educational videos. Viewers can ask clarifying questions, get helpful explanations or take a quiz on the subject matter. 

This is going to be some relief for those who have to watch longer educational videos, such as lectures or seminars, due to the Gemini model’s long-context capabilities. These new features are rolling out to select Android users in the U.S. Read more

Gemma 2 updates

One of the top requests Google heard from developers is for a bigger Gemma model, so Google will be adding a new 27-billion-parameter model to Gemma 2. This next generation of Google’s Gemma models will launch in June. This size is optimized by Nvidia to run on next-generation GPU and can run efficiently on a single TPU host and vertex AI, Google said. Read more

Google Play

Google Play is getting some attention with a new discovery feature for apps, new ways to acquire users, updates to Play Points and other enhancements to developer-facing tools like the Google Play SDK Console and Play Integrity API, among other things.

Of particular interest to developers is something called the Engage SDK, which will introduce a way for app makers to showcase their content to users in a full-screen, immersive experience that’s personalized to the individual user. Google says this isn’t a surface that users can see at this time, however. Read more

Detecting scams during calls

Tuesday, Google previewed a feature it believes will alert users to potential scams during the call. 

The feature, which will be built into a future version of Android, utilizes Gemini Nano, the smallest version of Google’s generative AI offering, which can be run entirely on-device. The system effectively listens for “conversation patterns commonly associated with scams” in real time. 

Google gives the example of someone pretending to be a “bank representative.” Common scammer tactics like password requests and gift cards will also trigger the system. These are all pretty well understood to be ways of extracting your money from you, but plenty of people in the world are still vulnerable to these sorts of scams. Once set off, it will pop up a notification that the user may be falling prey to unsavory characters.  Read more

Google Photos is getting an AI infusion with the launch of an experimental feature, Ask Photos, powered by Google’s Gemini AI model. The new addition, which rolls out later this summer, will allow users to search across their Google Photos collection using natural language queries that leverage an AI’s understanding of their photo’s content and other metadata.

While before users could search for specific people, places, or things in their photos, thanks to natural language processing, the AI upgrade will make finding the right content more intuitive and less of a manual search process.

And the example was cute, too. Who doesn’t love a tiger stuffed animal/Golden Retriever band duo called “Golden Stripes?” Read more

All About Gemini

Gemini in Gmail

Gmail users will be able to search, summarize, and draft their emails using its Gemini AI technology. It will also be able to take action on emails for more complex tasks, like helping you process an e-commerce return by searching your inbox, finding the receipt and filling out an online form. Read more

Gemini 1.5 Pro

Another upgrade to the generative AI is that Gemini can now analyze longer documents, codebases, videos and audio recordings than before.

In a private preview of a new version of Gemini 1.5 Pro, the company’s current flagship model, it was revealed that it can take in up to 2 million tokens. That’s double the previous maximum amount. With that level, the new version of Gemini 1.5 Pro supports the largest input of any commercially available model. Read more

Gemini Live

The company previewed a new experience in Gemini called Gemini Live, which lets users have “in-depth” voice chats with Gemini on their smartphones. Users can interrupt Gemini while the chatbot’s speaking to ask clarifying questions, and it’ll adapt to their speech patterns in real time. And Gemini can see and respond to users’ surroundings, either via photos or video captured by their smartphones’ cameras.

At first glance, Live doesn’t seem like a drastic upgrade over existing tech. But Google claims it taps newer techniques from the generative AI field to deliver superior, less error-prone image analysis — and combines these techniques with an enhanced speech engine for more consistent, emotionally expressive and realistic multi-turn dialogue. Read more

Gemini Nano

Now for a tiny announcement. Google is also building Gemini Nano, the smallest of its AI models, directly into the Chrome desktop client, starting with Chrome 126. This, the company says, will enable developers to use the on-device model to power their own AI features. Google plans to use this new capability to power features like the existing “help me write” tool from Workspace Lab in Gmail, for example. Read more

Gemini on Android

Google’s Gemini on Android, its AI replacement for Google Assistant, will soon be taking advantage of its ability to deeply integrate with Android’s mobile operating system and Google’s apps. Users will be able to drag and drop AI-generated images directly into their Gmail, Google Messages and other apps. Meanwhile, YouTube users will be able to tap “Ask this video” to find specific information from within that YouTube video, Google says. Read more

Gemini on Google Maps

Gemini model capabilities are coming to the Google Maps platform for developers, starting with the Places API. Developers can show generative AI summaries of places and areas in their own apps and websites. The summaries are created based on Gemini’s analysis of insights from Google Maps’ community of more than 300 million contributors. What’s better? Developers will no longer have to write their own custom descriptions of places. Read more

Tensor Processing Units get a performance boost

Google unveiled its next generation — the sixth, to be exact — of its Tensor Processing Units (TPU) AI chips. Dubbed Trillium, they will launch later this year. If you recall, announcing the next generation of TPUs is something of a tradition at I/O, even as the chips only roll out later in the year. 

These new TPUs will feature a 4.7x performance boost in compute performance per chip when compared to the fifth generation. What’s maybe even more important, though, is that Trillium features the third generation of SparseCore, which Google describes as “a specialized accelerator for processing ultra-large embeddings common in advanced ranking and recommendation workloads.” Read more

AI in search

Google is adding more AI to its search, assuaging doubts that the company is losing market share to competitors like ChatGPT and Perplexity. It is rolling out AI-powered overviews to users in the U.S. Additionally, the company is also looking to use Gemini as an agent for things like trip planning. Read more

Google plans to use generative AI to organize the entire search results page for some search results. That’s in addition to the existing AI Overview feature, which creates a short snippet with aggregate information about a topic you were searching for. The AI Overview feature becomes generally available Tuesday, after a stint in Google’s AI Labs program. Read more

Generative AI upgrades

Google announced Imagen 3, the latest in the tech giant’s Imagen generative AI model family.

Demis Hassabis, CEO of DeepMind, Google’s AI research division, said that Imagen 3 more accurately understands the text prompts that it translates into images versus its predecessor, Imagen 2, and is more “creative and detailed” in its generations. In addition, the model produces fewer “distracting artifacts” and errors, he said.

“This is [also] our best model yet for rendering text, which has been a challenge for image generation models,” Hassabis added. Read more

Project IDX

Project IDX, the company’s next-gen, AI-centric browser-based development environment, is now in open beta. With this update comes an integration with the Google Maps Platform into the IDE, helping add geolocation features to its apps, as well as integrations with the Chrome Dev Tools and Lighthouse to help debug applications. Soon, Google will also enable deploying apps to Cloud Run, Google Cloud’s serverless platform for running front- and back-end services. Read more

Google’s gunning for OpenAI’s Sora with Veo, an AI model that can create 1080p video clips around a minute long given a text prompt. Veo can capture different visual and cinematic styles, including shots of landscapes and time lapses, and make edits and adjustments to already-generated footage.

It also builds on Google’s preliminary commercial work in video generation, previewed in April, which tapped the company’s Imagen 2 family of image-generating models to create looping video clips. Read more

Circle to Search

The AI-powered Circle to Search feature, which allows Android users to get instant answers using gestures like circling, will now be able to solve more complex problems across psychics and math word problems. It’s designed to make it more natural to engage with Google Search from anywhere on the phone by taking some action — like circling, highlighting, scribbling or tapping. Oh, and it’s also better to help kids with their homework directly from supported Android phones and tablets. Read more

Google couldn’t wait until I/O to show off the latest addition to the Pixel line and announced the new Pixel 8a last week. The handset starts at $499 and ships Tuesday. The updates, too, are what we’ve come to expect from these refreshes. At the top of the list is the addition of the Tensor G3 chip. Read more

Pixel Slate

Google’s Pixel Tablet, called Slate, is now available. If you recall, Brian reviewed the Pixel Tablet around this time last year, and all he talked about was the base. Interestingly enough, the tablet is available without it. Read more

We’ll be updating this post throughout the day …

We’re launching an AI newsletter! Sign up here to start receiving it in your inboxes on June 5.

More TechCrunch

Get the industry’s biggest tech news, techcrunch daily news.

Every weekday and Sunday, you can get the best of TechCrunch’s coverage.

Startups Weekly

Startups are the core of TechCrunch, so get our best coverage delivered weekly.

TechCrunch Fintech

The latest Fintech news and analysis, delivered every Sunday.

TechCrunch Mobility

TechCrunch Mobility is your destination for transportation news and insight.

A venture capital firm looks back on changing norms, from board seats to backing rival startups

Last month, one of the Bay Area’s better-known early-stage venture capital firms, Uncork Capital, marked its 20th anniversary with a party in a renovated church in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood,…

Families of Uvalde shooting victims sue Activision and Meta

The families of victims of the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas are suing Activision and Meta, as well as gun manufacturer Daniel Defense. The families bringing the…

Y Combinator’s Garry Tan supports some AI regulation but warns against AI monopolies

Like most Silicon Valley VCs, what Garry Tan sees is opportunities for new, huge, lucrative businesses.

How Maven’s AI-run ‘serendipity network’ can make social media interesting again

Everything in society can feel geared toward optimization – whether that’s standardized testing or artificial intelligence algorithms. We’re taught to know what outcome you want to achieve, and find the…

Women in AI: Miriam Vogel stresses the need for responsible AI

Miriam Vogel, profiled as part of TechCrunch’s Women in AI series, is the CEO of the nonprofit responsible AI advocacy organization EqualAI.

What are Google’s AI Overviews good for?

Google has been taking heat for some of the inaccurate, funny, and downright weird answers that it’s been providing via AI Overviews in search. AI Overviews are the AI-generated search…

The ups and downs of investing in Europe, with VCs Saul Klein and Raluca Ragab

When it comes to the world of venture-backed startups, some issues are universal, and some are very dependent on where the startups and its backers are located. It’s something we…

Scarlett Johansson brought receipts to the OpenAI controversy

Welcome back to TechCrunch’s Week in Review — TechCrunch’s newsletter recapping the week’s biggest news. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. OpenAI announced this week that…

Deal Dive: Can blockchain make weather forecasts better? WeatherXM thinks so

Accurate weather forecasts are critical to industries like agriculture, and they’re also important to help prevent and mitigate harm from inclement weather events or natural disasters. But getting forecasts right…

Spyware app pcTattletale was hacked and its website defaced

pcTattletale’s website was briefly defaced and contained links containing files from the spyware maker’s servers, before going offline.

Featured Article

Synapse, backed by a16z, has collapsed, and 10 million consumers could be hurt

Synapse’s bankruptcy shows just how treacherous things are for the often-interdependent fintech world when one key player hits trouble. 

Women in AI: Sarah Myers West says we should ask, ‘Why build AI at all?’

Sarah Myers West, profiled as part of TechCrunch’s Women in AI series, is managing director at the AI Now institute.

This Week in AI: OpenAI and publishers are partners of convenience

Keeping up with an industry as fast-moving as AI is a tall order. So until an AI can do it for you, here’s a handy roundup of recent stories in the world…

AI tutors are quietly changing how kids in the US study, and the leading apps are from China

Evan, a high school sophomore from Houston, was stuck on a calculus problem. He pulled up Answer AI on his iPhone, snapped a photo of the problem from his Advanced…

Startups Weekly: Drama at Techstars. Drama in AI. Drama everywhere.

Welcome to Startups Weekly — Haje‘s weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. Well,…

From Plaid to Figma, here are the startups that are likely — or definitely — not having IPOs this year

Last year’s investor dreams of a strong 2024 IPO pipeline have faded, if not fully disappeared, as we approach the halfway point of the year. 2024 delivered four venture-backed tech…

Feds add nine more incidents to Waymo robotaxi investigation

Federal safety regulators have discovered nine more incidents that raise questions about the safety of Waymo’s self-driving vehicles operating in Phoenix and San Francisco.  The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration…

Pitch Deck Teardown: Terra One’s $7.5M Seed deck

Terra One’s pitch deck has a few wins, but also a few misses. Here’s how to fix that.

Women in AI: Chinasa T. Okolo researches AI’s impact on the Global South

Chinasa T. Okolo researches AI policy and governance in the Global South.

Disrupt 2024 early-bird tickets fly away next Friday

TechCrunch Disrupt takes place on October 28–30 in San Francisco. While the event is a few months away, the deadline to secure your early-bird tickets and save up to $800…

Big tech companies are plowing money into AI startups, which could help them dodge antitrust concerns

Another week, and another round of crazy cash injections and valuations emerged from the AI realm. DeepL, an AI language translation startup, raised $300 million on a $2 billion valuation;…

Harlem Capital is raising a $150 million fund

If raised, this new fund, the firm’s third, would be its largest to date.

US pharma giant Cencora says Americans’ health information stolen in data breach

About half a million patients have been notified so far, but the number of affected individuals is likely far higher.

Last day to vote for TC Disrupt 2024 Audience Choice program

Attention, tech enthusiasts and startup supporters! The final countdown is here: Today is the last day to cast your vote for the TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 Audience Choice program. Voting closes…

Signal’s Meredith Whittaker on the Telegram security clash and the ‘edge lords’ at OpenAI 

Among other things, Whittaker is concerned about the concentration of power in the five main social media platforms.

Lucid Motors slashes 400 jobs ahead of crucial SUV launch

Lucid Motors is laying off about 400 employees, or roughly 6% of its workforce, as part of a restructuring ahead of the launch of its first electric SUV later this…

Google invests $350 million in Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart

Google is investing nearly $350 million in Flipkart, becoming the latest high-profile name to back the Walmart-owned Indian e-commerce startup. The Android-maker will also provide Flipkart with cloud offerings as…

Jio Financial unit to buy $4.32B of telecom gear from Reliance Retail

A Jio Financial unit plans to purchase customer premises equipment and telecom gear worth $4.32 billion from Reliance Retail.

Foursquare just laid off 105 employees

Foursquare, the location-focused outfit that in 2020 merged with Factual, another location-focused outfit, is joining the parade of companies to make cuts to one of its biggest cost centers –…

Using memes, social media users have become red teams for half-baked AI features

“Running with scissors is a cardio exercise that can increase your heart rate and require concentration and focus,” says Google’s new AI search feature. “Some say it can also improve…

How Can We Help

by Laura Nooney, Shipley Center

Pov: reflections on ai from the nercomp 2024 conference.

In Thought Leadership

POV: Reflections on AI and Education from the NERCOMP 2024 Conference

Every year, DL&I staff members attend the NorthEast Regional Computing Program (NERCOMP) conference and report back on key takeaways. This conference is designed to provide a space for higher education technologists to build expertise and share information with one another. In this POV, Shipley Center Project Manager Laura Nooney shares her insights with us from this year’s conference.

I tend to approach conferences as if I were a sponge. I soak up everything I come across: ideas, speakers, panels, side conversations, and connections. I approached NERCOMP 2024 no differently, except I was a sponge with a mission. 

Keynote Address: A Fireside Chat with Dr. Alondra Nelson on science, technology and social inequality

The keynote was Dr. Alondra Nelson, former acting director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. She also authored the famed Nelson Memo , which assures public access to all federally-funded research. (Thanks, Dr. Nelson!)  She knows a LOT about AI and is a pretty big deal. Here’s her take on AI and its future: 

• By design, AI is built on machine learning technologies where algorithms use existing patterns of information to build upon, or "learn", and then make predictions based on these patterns. This means that when a large language model (LLM) is trained on content available on the internet, for example, it absorbs whatever bias exists there, and in turn, the "knowledge" that stems from that process is also biased .
• We don’t need new legislation just for AI. The U.S. currently has laws and systems in place to regulate and defend against many kinds of discrimination that occur. (Here’s looking at YOU intellectual property law, the 14th Amendment, and Title IX…)
• Generative AI (GAI) is unlikely to reach “true” intelligence because it isn’t good at applying what it learns to new situations. When the existing models are tasked with doing this at scale, they produce lots of “ hallucinations ”, i.e., nonsensical or inaccurate outputs. However, it’s perfect for autonomous creativity, which doesn’t have to be accurate or real (see sponge above).
• Today’s policy will have an impact. Equity matters. We need to get this right. 

Conference Session Highlights:

Most of the conference sessions weren't as focused on equity and bias issues as Dr. Nelson’s fireside chat. There was also a lot of excitement about what is possible with AI with some nods to the critical interrogation of its output.

Lance Eaton, my favorite AI blogger , (I have a favorite AI blogger??!!) co-ran a half-day workshop on leveraging AI to support faculty. The best thing about the workshop was the resource pack we received, entitled, “Your New Teammate.” The title is pretty on point . It includes a side-by-side comparison of different AI tools for education, and a whole bevy of article links grouped by topic, including guidance on prompt creation. It also includes a bunch of very specific scenario prompts to get you started, like Design a Part-time Faculty Laptop Lending Policy and Make Sense of Terms of Service . 

In other sessions, I heard some Xtremely techy advice. For example, the most secure GAI LLM is one you build and host yourself. Roughly translated, this means that if you want to provide the most privacy and data security for using and implementing GAI within an academic environment, the best option is to create your own LLM and host it on your own server network. Sure, no problem! 

Conference Takeaways:

My take: Trying to learn about AI is like trying to learn about an elephant with my eyes closed. Touching the tail and touching the ear leads to imagining very different animals. 

So, here’s what I’m still still thinking about after my NERCOMP AI mission: 

• The AI you’re using now is the worst AI you will ever use.
• We should work with and against AI, meaning, both leverage and question it.
• We need to be really (I mean, really ) mindful of the bias in AI’s output. Nettrice Gaskins , an academic, cultural critic, and digital artist who has interrogated this bias through her research and artwork , has some eye-opening essays on this topic, including:

View all posts

Recent Work

Explore More Faculty Voices and Projects

Juneberry Review Project

Chemistry Adaptive Learning

PhD Progression

Submit a proposal.

Lisa Su says AMD is on track to a 100x power efficiency improvement by 2027 — CEO outlines AMD’s advances during keynote at imec’s ITF World 2024

Less energy, more performance.

AMD CEO Lisa Su attended imec’s ITF World 2024 conference to accept the prestigious imec Innovation Award for innovation and industry leadership, joining the ranks of other previous honorees like Gordon Moore, Morris Chang, and Bill Gates. After accepting the award, Su launched into her presentation covering the steps that AMD has taken to meet the company’s 30x25 goal, which aims for a 30x increase in compute node power efficiency by 2025. Su announced that AMD is not only on track to meet that goal, but it also now sees a pathway to more than a 100x improvement by 2026 to 2027.

Concerns about AI power usage have been thrust into the limelight due to the explosion of generative AI LLMs like ChatGPT, but AMD had the vision to foresee problems with AI’s voracious power appetite as far back as 2021. Back then, AMD began work on its 30x25 goal to improve data center compute node power efficiency, specifically citing AI and HPC power consumption as a looming problem. (AMD set its first ambitious energy goal back in 2014 with its inaugural 25x20 goal to improve consumer processor power efficiency by 25x by 2020, which it exceeded with a 31.7x improvement .)

That problem has now come to the forefront. Generative AI is fueling the rapid expansion of data centers as the world’s largest companies vie for AI supremacy, but public power grids aren’t prepared for a sudden surge of power-hungry data centers, making power the new limiting factor. There are hard limits on the amount of power available to data centers as grid capacity, infrastructure, and environmental concerns limit the capacity that can be dedicated to both new and expanding data centers alike. In fact, many new data centers are being constructed next to power plants to ensure the supply of power, and the crushing demand has even reignited the push for nuclear Small Module Reactors (SMRs) to supply individual data centers. 

The problem is only intensifying as the compute required to train models increases. Su pointed out that the size of the first image and speech recognition AI models used to double every two years, largely matching the pace of advances in computing power over the last decade. The size of generative AI models is now growing at 20x per year, however, outstripping the pace of computing and memory advancements. Su said that while today’s largest models are trained on tens of thousands of GPUs consuming up to tens of thousands of megawatt-hours, rapidly expanding model sizes could soon require up to hundreds of thousands of GPUs for training, perhaps requiring several gigawatts of power to train a single model. That clearly isn’t tenable.

AMD has a multi-pronged strategy for improving power efficiency, consisting of a broad approach that expands beyond its silicon architectures and advanced packaging strategies to AI-specific architectures, system- and data center-level tuning, and software and hardware co-design initiatives.

Naturally, silicon is the bedrock. Su pointed to 3nm Gate All Around (GAA) transistors as AMD’s next step on the silicon roadmap to improve power efficiency and performance, along with a continued focus on advanced packaging and interconnects that enable more power-efficient and cost-effective modular designs. Advanced packaging plays a key role in scaling out designs to produce more horsepower within the constraints of a single chip package, and AMD employs a mix of 2.5D and 3D packaging to maximize the amount of compute-per-watt it can wring from each square millimeter of data center silicon.

Transferring data between server nodes and server racks consumes extra power due to longer distances, so optimizing for data locality can yield tremendous power savings. AMD’s MI300X is a great example of the efficiency wrung from making ever-larger chip packages — the chip wields 153 billion transistors spread across 12 chiplets paired with 24 HBM3 chips that provide 192GB of memory capacity, all of which is available to the GPU as local memory. Paired with power- and performance-optimized infinity Fabric interconnects between the in-package units, the extreme compute and memory density keeps more data close to the processing cores, thus reducing the amount of energy required to transfer data.

Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware Newsletter

Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.

Su said that while hardware optimizations are important, AMD’s work on hardware and software co-optimization also yields impressive results. Using lower-precision numerical formats boosts power efficiency and performance, so designing in specific hardware acceleration is important for continued scaling. As you can see in the slides above, moving to lower-precision formats like FP4 drastically increases the FLOPs per Joule of consumed energy – compared to FP32, FP8 delivers a 15x increase in power efficiency while FP4 delivers around a 30x improvement.

Lower precision results in lower accuracy, but Su highlighted that advanced quantization techniques have helped address that issue. In fact, even MXFP6 can produce similar accuracy to FP32, with a drop off only seen at MXFP4 with a few of the different models, while others are still just as accurate. Work continues on improving the accuracy of low precision formats, so we could even see MXFP4 become just as accurate as FP32 across many more models in the future.

Overall, Su said that AMD has exceeded the industry’s rate of progress on power efficiency per node as the company remains on pace to meet its 30x power efficiency improvement. Su expects that trend to continue, saying, “With this type of innovation, based on what we see today, we think we can do better than that. We are on track to do greater than 100 times by the time we get up to 2026 and 2027. And there's much, much more we can do in this area.”

Imec’s event had a strong roster of presenters from multiple semiconductor companies, like ASML, TSMC, Intel and SK hynix, among others, and many of the speakers echoed Su’s sentiments that data center power consumption, and the environmental ramifications associated with it, are becoming a first-order problem.

Su noted that continuing the pace of power efficiency improvements will take an industry-wide effort. “We have the opportunity to drive that ecosystem by bringing many different capabilities and many different expertise’s together. I think that's the key for the next generation of innovation,” Su said.

“We're all experts in certain areas, but when we bring process folks, packaging folks, hardware designers, architects, software's models and systems designers together, we can get that holistic design capability that really bend the curve of innovation going forward,” Su said.

Producing processors is also a carbon and water-intensive process, so sustainability was a key topic at the event. Su didn’t touch on the company’s progress in reducing its carbon footprint, but the company recently outlined its achievements in that area in a blog post , saying that leveraging chiplet-based architectures has saved ~50K metric tons of CO2e in 2023 simply by yield improvements that ultimately reduce the number of wafers it needs to fab. That single year’s C02e savings was equivalent to AMD’s entire operational footprint for the entire year of 2022, highlighting that AMD is tackling environmental challenges from multiple angles.

Paul Alcorn is the Managing Editor: News and Emerging Tech for Tom's Hardware US. He also writes news and reviews on CPUs, storage, and enterprise hardware.

Snapdragon X Elite shows 2X higher multi-threaded performance than Apple M2 in new benchmarks — Apple M2 is faster in single-threaded performance, though

AMD reportedly changes upcoming Ryzen CPU branding to one-up Intel — leak points to Ryzen AI 300 to leapfrog Intel's Core Ultra 200 series

5 Key Design Rules for 3D Printing

• JTWrenn This feels like a what have you done for me lately problem. Cool AMD, that 100x thing sounds super awesome on paper, but nobody in the know really believes it. We know you will use the exact same amount of power total, and that it is just a type of green washing...also everyone will likely have a large increase in efficiency in this arena as it is the big push....always is a same power more production pipeline. This just feels a little desperately times, or something. AMD needs to actually compete with Nvidia head to head at some point here instead of always being off by a bit with some caveat. Would love a real Nvidia competitor. Reply

JTWrenn said: This just feels a little desperately times, or something. AMD needs to actually compete with Nvidia head to head at some point here instead of always being off by a bit with some caveat. Would love a real Nvidia competitor.

• peachpuff Intel: *spills drink* WHAT?!? Reply
• Jimbojan All AMD proposed are doing by all others, there is no magic to it. Reply
• vanadiel007 If you get away from the idea you need Ray Tracing in games, AMD provides alternative products to Nvidia. If then you get away from the idea that you need an Intel CPU for gaming, they also provide alternatives to Intel products. I have no doubt that people will once again buy RTX 5000 GPU's just because it's in their head they need to upgrade. Nvidia is very good at marketing their products and making consumers believe they need their technology. That is the only area where AMD is really lagging when compared to Intel and Nvidia. In a way it's instilled in many consumers heads' that only Intel/Nvidia make good gaming products. Reply

JTWrenn said: This feels like a what have you done for me lately problem. Cool AMD, that 100x thing sounds super awesome on paper, but nobody in the know really believes it. We know you will use the exact same amount of power total, and that it is just a type of green washing...also everyone will likely have a large increase in efficiency in this arena as it is the big push....always is a same power more production pipeline. This just feels a little desperately times, or something. AMD needs to actually compete with Nvidia head to head at some point here instead of always being off by a bit with some caveat. Would love a real Nvidia competitor.

vanadiel007 said: If you get away from the idea you need Ray Tracing in games, AMD provides alternative products to Nvidia. If then you get away from the idea that you need an Intel CPU for gaming, they also provide alternatives to Intel products. I have no doubt that people will once again buy RTX 5000 GPU's just because it's in their head they need to upgrade. Nvidia is very good at marketing their products and making consumers believe they need their technology. That is the only area where AMD is really lagging when compared to Intel and Nvidia.

vanadiel007 said: In a way it's instilled in many consumers heads' that only Intel/Nvidia make good gaming products.

• jojos_buddy AMD, QC, STMicro, Brocadcom know the missing piece from Nvidia's "moat" is...power. Nvidia hardware is very power hungry & inefficient, mainly in size, consumption and thermal. Even Tegras are home heaters. Intel knows it, but can't execute aside from legacy architectures (Core cpus). Now, with all the Snapdragon hype on MS laptops, AMD is really going to complete on 2 fronts: datacenter efficiency and edge AI, hence the competition is Nvidia, QC....and Apple. Didn't Nvidia announce ARM cpus incoming (likely for edge AI) ? Thus, efficiency is a top sales point and breaks the Nvidia moat... for now. Intel? They are all over the place and with Altera spun out, heading to just compete with TSMC if their management doesn't get their act together with a real vision. But maybe that's their vision--cause TSMC's business is with all of the above? Reply

valthuer said: .. In other words, if AMD wants to get ahead of Nvidia, it actually has to get ahead of Nvidia. It can't follow and thereby become the leader. Drafting (like we see in cycling or running or other sports) doesn't work in the business world. AMD needs to figure out a way to leapfrog Nvidia. And that's damn difficult to do, obviously.

• View All 52 Comments

Most Popular