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

Abstract

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, pauses, etc. This research analyzes one such AI-PPP to determine its effectiveness utilizing the text complexity framework. This mixed methods case study reports participants’ AI-PPP-assigned public speaking scores, experiences, and concerns with using AI-PPPs as a learning tool. Implications include recommendations for instructors for improving public speaking instruction with AI-PPPs, as well as developers for refining AI-PPP tools.