AI-Powered Presentation Platforms for Improving Public Speaking Skills: Takeaways and Suggestions for Improvement

Skilled orators and their public speaking skills have been held in high esteem since antiquity. Artificial intelligence-powered presentation platforms (AI-PPPs) are an emerging educational technology that provides a virtual venue and AI audience for users to practice a presentation or pitch and receive feedback to improve their public speaking skills. AI-PPPs allow users to customize their context (e.g., audience type, setting, type of presentation) and make their presentation to a virtual audience comprised of avatars. AI-PPPs use algorithms to interpret the user’s public speaking skills and provide an analysis of their performance, often including metrics on pitch, eye contact, pace, volume, distractors, paus-es, etc. This research analyzes one such AI-PPP to determine its effectiveness utilizing the text complexity framework. This mixed methods case study reports graduate educational innovation program participants’ AI-PPP-assigned public speaking scores, experiences, and concerns with using AI-PPPs as a learning tool, and data was collected from survey items, performance scores, and focus group interviews. The researchers identified that while the participants found initial value with the AI-PPP, there was growing frustration with its feedback and functionality. Implications based on these find-ings include recommendations for instructors for improving public speaking instruction with AI-PPPs, as well as develop-ers for refining AI-PPP tools. In addition, limitations that may have impacted this study’s results are discussed.