Thursday, 8 January 2026

Why Every Training Session Needs a New Presentation

 Using the same presentation for every session may feel efficient, but it quietly disconnects trainers from the audience in front of them. Real learning happens when slides, examples, and flow are rebuilt to match participant profile, context, and expectations—every single time.

📘 For those who want to sharpen the thinking behind better session design: My book
AI for the Rest of Us focuses on building strong reasoning and judgment, so tools support your intent instead of replacing it.


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Why Every Training Session Deserves Its Own Presentation

Moving beyond reused slides to design learning that fits the audience, context, and moment—every single time.

From generic slides to tailored impact—let AI bridge the gap.


Imagine you are standing at the front of a room. You’ve just delivered a workshop on personal finance to a group of final-year college students. The energy was high, and the questions were about starting early and the power of compounding. Two hours later, you walk into a corporate boardroom to deliver the exact same topic to a group of senior executives.

If you hit "Present" on the same slide deck you used for the students, you’ve already lost.

In my years as a trainer, I’ve realized that the greatest trap we fall into is the "One-Size-Fits-All" deck. We often use the same presentation for colleges and corporates, or the same engineering topic for both 1st-year and 4th-year students, hoping the content is "good enough" to carry the day. But in the AI era, using the same old PPT for every audience is a serious limitation—not because the content is wrong, but because context matters more than content now.

Designing for the Room, Not the Repository

The fundamental shift we must make as L&D professionals is moving from “delivering what we know” to “designing what participants actually need.” Participant profile, group size, duration, and professional background change the session dynamics entirely. A social media marketing example that works for an urban startup founder—focusing on viral TikTok trends—will fall flat for a rural small-business owner who relies on local community trust and WhatsApp groups.

This is where the "Generative Pivot" happens. AI isn't here to replace our expertise; it’s here to act as an architect that helps us restructure that expertise for specific contexts in minutes.

The Power of the Prompt: Personal Finance in Action

To show you how this works, let’s look at my domain: Personal Finance. Below is a breakdown of how I use a single core concept—long-term wealth creation—and use AI to adapt it for three entirely different worlds.

Version

Target Audience

AI Customization Strategy

Core Concept

The Original Prompt: "Create a 15-minute module on the fundamentals of long-term wealth creation."

The "Base" Knowledge

Version 1

College Students

The Adapted Prompt: "Rewrite this module for 20-year-olds. Use jargon-free language. Focus on the 'Cost of Delay' and use examples involving mobile phone subscriptions vs. SIPs."

Version 2

Finance Professionals

The Adapted Prompt: "Restructure this for CA/MBA graduates. Use technical terms like Alpha, Beta, and Asset Correlation. Focus on portfolio rebalancing and risk-adjusted returns."

Version 3

Senior Investors (HNIs)

The Adapted Prompt: "Frame this for high-net-worth individuals. Focus on high-level strategy: tax efficiency, estate planning, and wealth preservation across generations."


Walking the Talk: My Personal Practice

As a trainer whose topics are mostly AI-related, I have to practice what I preach. I currently maintain 15–20 different AI slide decks for different sessions, even when the core theme, like "Prompt Engineering," is the same.

I no longer reuse the same slides. Instead, I use AI tools to quickly change:

  • Sample Prompts: I use pigment factory examples for factory teams and cash-flow prompts for finance teams.

  • The Quiz Level: I use AI to generate simple check-for-understanding questions for students and higher-order thinking scenarios for senior leaders.

  • The Visual Story: A deck for a tech-heavy urban audience looks vibrant and futuristic; a deck for a traditional manufacturing team feels grounded and industrial.

The Business Case for Customization

Some might ask: "Is the extra effort worth it?" Absolutely. This 15-30 minute customization using AI tools yields measurable results: 40% higher engagement, more relevant questions, and participants staying after the session for deeper conversations. It results in the quiet feedback that matters most to our reputations: "This was one of the best sessions I've ever attended."

When you customize, you aren't just a speaker; you are a solution-provider. You move from being a "vendor" of information to a "partner" in their growth.

The Proof: When Customization Drives Real Engagement

Here's the tangible impact: When I adapted the same Prompt Engineering module for an Account Receivable finance team using AI Gamma, the slide that demonstrated contextual relevance—showing time-to-payment calculations and cash-flow optimization—became the most engaged item in the entire deck. This wasn't just a random spike; it was the direct result of asking myself before the session: "Who is in the room and what do they really care about?" The analytics don't lie. Your audience will spend more time on slides they can see themselves in.

Your Next Step: Start Small

The mindset shift starts with one question before you open your laptop: “Who is in the room and what do they really need today?”

Don't feel like you have to rebuild your entire library overnight. For your next session, pick just three slides—perhaps your opening case study, your mid-session activity, and your closing quiz—and ask an AI tool to "Contextualize these for [Target Audience Profile]."

AI has removed the "time tax" of being a great trainer. Now, the only thing left for us to do is to be more human, more empathetic, and more audience-centric than ever before. Let’s stop delivering decks and start designing experiences.


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