Draft from data

Draft from data has the AI write a first draft of a deck for you. The AI writes the words and picks the layouts; every figure on the slides comes from your data, under your own access, as a live number DataSquares fills. The AI never types a number of its own onto a slide.

It runs in two steps you start yourself: the outline first, which you edit and approve, then the slides. Each step shows its AI credits before it runs, and nothing is added to a deck until you insert the slides.

Start a draft

• On the Presentations home, choose New presentation, then Draft from data. The slides go into a new deck.
• In a deck you may add slides to, choose Insert → Draft slides with AI. The slides go after the slide you are on. What you changed is saved first.

People whose role doesn’t include AI for Presentations, or whose workspace turned it off, are told so as soon as they choose what to draft from (AI controls).

What it drafts from

Under Start from, choose one:

Start from	What the draft reads
Metrics	The metrics you pick, up to eight, each over the period you choose and compared as you choose.
A dashboard	A dashboard you can open: its KPI cards, each bound as Make it an editable chart binds it, and its charts and tables, which the AI may place on a slide as dashboard visuals.
A story	A story you can read: the live numbers in the sections you can read, each bound again for slides.
A question	A question in your words: the metrics whose names and descriptions share its words, the best six. A question that matches none is refused, with what to do instead.

Then choose:

• Period — for metrics and a question: the last complete month, quarter or year, or the month, quarter or year to date. A dashboard’s KPI cards and a story’s live numbers keep the periods they read, so there is no period to choose for them.
• Compare with — the period before, the same period a year before, or nothing. Where a slide says what a change is compared with, DataSquares writes it from this choice (the period before, the same period a year before); the AI never names it in its own words.
• Written for — who the deck is for, such as Leadership team (optional).
• Length — up to four, six or ten slides.

It reads lists each figure as it reads for you now, and what was left out and why: a figure you may not read, a metric that is no longer there, a KPI card that cannot be bound. The AI sees these computed figures, never your rows.

Credits, before each step runs

The foot of the dialog shows what each step uses, in whole AI credits, before it runs: the outline, then the slides when you insert them, and how many credits you can use now. A step is charged whether or not you keep what it wrote, and when DataSquares leaves out words the AI wrote that it refuses (see Insert the slides): the dialog says so before you insert. If a step’s estimate has gone up since you saw it, nothing runs and the dialog shows the new one, to run again if you want. If a step’s estimate is more than what is left of your monthly AI credit budget, or the workspace’s, it doesn’t run, and the message says how many credits are left and when the budget starts again (AI controls). When no credits are left, the steps don’t run, and the dialog says an administrator can buy credits in Billing. See AI credits.

The outline

Choose Draft the outline. The outline comes back labeled AI-written with its date: the deck’s title, then each slide with its layout, a title, a point (what it should say), and the figures and visual it shows.

Layout	What the slide holds
Cover	The deck’s title and a line beneath it.
Section	A divider with its title.
KPI tiles	Two to five figures as tiles, each with its change beneath it. One figure is shown as a big number.
Big number	One figure, large, with a few lines on why it matters.
Chart	A dashboard’s chart or table, with its headline and a few lines.
Text	A title and a few lines.
Closing	What to decide or do next.

Each figure is a chip with how it reads for you now: a live number DataSquares fills, never a number the AI typed. Before you insert the slides you can:

• rewrite any title or point, in words: a figure typed into the outline (in digits, or in words such as twelve, fifth or tripled) is refused with Figures come from the data on the slides: write it in words, and a date or a period (September, quarter, year to date) with The period comes from the data on the slides: leave it out. The names of the figures and charts can be written as they are. Where the AI typed a figure, named a period or said which way a figure moved in a title or a point, it was cleared for you to write;
• move a slide up or down, or remove it;
• leave a figure out of a slide (a KPI slide keeps at least one, a big number its one);
• give the new deck its title, in any words, such as Quarterly business review: it is the presentation’s name, not a slide’s words (in a deck, the deck keeps its own, and the outline has no title to set).

Each slide’s title and point is said under its field, and Insert stays off until they are words only.

Changing what it drafts from afterwards marks the outline out of date: draft it again before inserting. Redo the outline asks for a new one.

Insert the slides

Choose Insert … slides. The AI writes the words of each slide of the outline you approved, and DataSquares lays them out on the deck’s own layouts, in its style:

• every figure is a live number, read for each reader with their own access;
• a period such as Q3 2026 is a period token that moves with the period;
• a word that says which way a figure moved (rose, fell, held steady) follows the figure, so it never stands beside the opposite: the AI may write a change only right after such a word, or among neutral words (a change of …);
• what a change is compared with (the period before, the same period a year before) is written by DataSquares from Compare with.

The AI’s words on a slide may hold only words and the figures that slide of your outline shows. Each title, headline and line is checked on its own, and against the ones before it on its slide. One that types a figure of its own (in digits, or in words such as twelve, fifth, tripled, a couple or half), names a date or a period (September, last year, the period before), says in its own words which way a figure moved, how it ranks, a record, a comparison or a target (grew, slid, advanced, highest, a new high, larger than, on target, missed), denies the word DataSquares writes for which way a figure moved (did not, never, could not have been, far from, nobody believes, it is false that before it; which is false, was not the case or in name only after it; a next sentence that denies it, such as That is not true. or Hardly. on its own; or a line that denies a line before it on its slide the same way), puts one figure’s change under another figure’s name (Orders rose 12.4%, Orders: up 12.4%, For orders, it rose 12.4% or Up 12.4% in orders where it was revenue that rose), puts a sign such as a minus before a figure, or quotes a figure the slide doesn’t show, never reaches the slide: it is left out whole, never cut, and the rest of the slide is kept. A hedge stands: It is not yet clear why orders fell 3.1%, Revenue not only rose 12.4% but …, Without the new region, revenue would not be up 12.4%, Revenue might not yet be up 12.4% … and Nobody expected revenue to be up 12.4% reach the slide, and so do Hardly a surprise, … after a claim and a figure named after the change as its cause (It rose 12.4% on larger orders). A slide whose title is left out takes the title from your outline, and every slide keeps its figures and chart. The message after inserting says what was left out and why (Left out: a line on slide 2, which typed a figure that is not from your data (“12%”)), and that the step’s credits were used all the same.

A new deck opens in the editor; in a deck, the first new slide opens. While your company locks its brand kit, a new deck wears what is locked (the brand’s colours, fonts and logo), as every new deck does. If the figures moved since the outline was drafted (the data, or your access to it, changed), nothing is added or charged: draft the outline again. In a deck, nothing is run or charged either when the slide they were to go after is no longer there, or when the deck can’t take that many more slides. If someone deletes that slide while the slides are being written, they go at the end of the deck instead, and the message says so.

AI-written text in the deck

Every text box the AI wrote is marked as AI-written. Select one and the Figure tab shows AI-written with its date. The checks read the mark too: in AI-written text, every figure is a live number.

Speaker notes are not drafted: each new slide’s notes are empty. To have the AI write them from a slide’s figures, or suggest a better headline for a slide, see Headlines and speaker notes.