Sanding UI

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Jim hit a snag while working on a form. Placing labels next to inputs is trivial with flexbox, sure, but what happened in Jim’s case was a bit of dead-clicking between the labels and radio buttons.

The issue? Not the markup, that’s all semantic and cool. Turns out the gap he placed between the elements is non-interactive. Makes sense when you think about it, but frustrating nonetheless because it looks like a bug and feels like a bug even though there’s nothing wrong with the styles.

The solution’s easy enough: padding along the inside edge of the input extends its box dimensions, allowing the added space to remain interactive with visual spacing. Margin wouldn’t work since it’s akin to gap in that it pushes the element’s box instead of expanding it.

I’m linking up Jim’s article because it’s a perfect demonstration that CSS is capable of accomplishing the same thing in many ways. It’s easy to fall into the trap of “single-solution” thinking, but CSS doesn’t want anything to do with that. It’ll instead challenge you to adapt toward open-minded strategies, perhaps even defensive ones.


Sanding UI originally published on CSS-Tricks, which is part of the DigitalOcean family. You should get the newsletter.



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Anchor Positioning Quirks

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I am thrilled to say, that from this week onwards, the CSS-tricks Almanac has an entry for each property, function, and at-rule related to the new Anchor Positioning API! For the last month, I have tried to fully understand this new module and explain it to the best of my ability. However, anchor positioning is still a new feature that brings even newer dynamics on how to position absolute elements, so it’s bound to have some weird quirks and maybe even a few bugs lurking around.

To celebrate the coverage, I wanted to discuss those head-scratchers I found while diving into this stuff and break them down so that hopefully, you won’t have to bang your head against the wall like I did at first.

The inset-modified containing block

A static element containing block is a fairly straightforward concept: it’s that element’s parent element’s content area. But things get tricky when talking about absolutely positioned elements. By default, an absolutely positioned element’s containing block is the viewport or the element’s closest ancestor with a position other than static, or certain values in properties like contain or filter.

All in all, the rules around an absolute element’s containing block aren’t so hard to remember. While anchor positioning and the containing block have their quirks (for example, the anchor element must be painted before the positioned element), I wanted to focus on the inset-modified containing block (which I’ll abbreviate as IMCB from here on out).

There isn’t a lot of information regarding the inset-modified containing block, and what information exists comes directly from the anchor positioning specification module. This tells me that, while it isn’t something new in CSS, it’s definitely something that has gained relevance thanks to anchor positioning.

The best explanation I could find comes directly from the spec:

For an absolutely positioned box, the inset properties effectively reduce the containing block into which it is sized and positioned by the specified amounts. The resulting rectangle is called the inset-modified containing block.

So if we inset an absolutely positioned element’s (with top, left, bottom, right, etc.), its containing block shrinks by the values on each property.

.absolute {
  position: absolute;
  top: 80px;
  right: 120px;
  bottom: 180px;
  left: 90px;
}

For this example, the element’s containing block is the full viewport, while its inset modified containing block is 80px away from the top, 120px away from the right, 180px away from the bottom, and 90px away from the left.

Example of an inset-modified containing block. It's shrinked 80px from the top, 120px from the right, 180px from the bottom and 90px from the left

Knowing how the IMCB works isn’t a top priority for learning CSS, but if you want to understand anchor positioning to its fullest, it’s a must-know concept. For instance, the position-area and position-try-order heavily rely on this concept.

In the case of the position-area property, a target containing block can be broken down into a grid divided by four imaginary lines:

  1. The start of the target’s containing block.
  2. The start of the anchor element or anchor(start).
  3. The end of the anchor element or anchor(end).
  4. The end of the target’s containing block.
Example of how we can think of the containing block of an anchor element as a 3x3 asymmetrical grid

The position-area property uses this 3×3 imaginary grid surrounding the target to position itself inside the grid. So, if we have two elements…

<div class="anchor">Anchor</div>
<div class="target">Target</div>

…attached with anchor positioning:

.anchor {
  anchor-name: --my-anchor;

  height: 50px;
  width: 50px;
}

.target {
  position: absolute;
  position-anchor: --my-anchor;

  height: 50px;
  width: 50px;
}

…we can position the .target element using the position-area property:

.target {
  position: absolute;
  position-anchor: --my-anchor;
  position-area: top left;

  height: 50px;
  width: 50px;
}

The IMCB is shrunk to fit inside the region of the grid we selected, in this case, the top-left region.

Example of the inset-modified containing block of a target element at the top left of the anchor

You can see it by setting both target’s dimensions to 100%:

The position-try-order also uses the IMCB dimensions to decide how to order the fallbacks declared in the position-try-fallbacks property. It checks which one of the fallbacks provides the IMCB with the largest available height or width, depending on whether you set the property with either the most-height or most-width values.

I had a hard time understanding this concept, but I think it’s perfectly shown in a visual tool by Una Kravets on https://chrome.dev/anchor-tool/.

Specification vs. implementation

The spec was my best friend while I researched anchor positioning. However, theory can only take you so far, and playing with a new feature is the fun part of understanding how it works. In the case of anchor positioning, some things were written in the spec but didn’t actually work in browsers (Chromium-based browsers at the time). After staring mindlessly at my screen, I found the issue was due to something so simple I didn’t even consider it: the browser and the spec didn’t match.

Anchor positioning is different from a lot of other features in how fast it shipped to browsers. The first draft was published on June 2023 and, just a year later, it was released on Chrome 125. To put it into perspective, the first draft for custom properties was published in 2012 and we waited four years to see it in implemented in browsers (although, Firefox shipped it years before other browsers).

I am excited to see browsers shipping new CSS features at a fast pace. While it’s awesome to get new stuff faster, it leaves less space between browsers and the CSSWG to remake features and polish existing drafts. Remember, once something is available in browsers, it’s hard to change or remove it. In the case of anchor positioning, browsers shipped certain properties and functions early on that were ultimately changed before the spec had fully settled into a Candidate Recommendation.

It’s a bit confusing, but as of Chrome 129+, this is the stuff that Chrome shipped that required changes:

position-area

The inset-area property was renamed to position-area (#10209), but it will be supported until Chrome 131.

.target {
  /* from */
  inset-area: top right;

  /* to */
  position-area: top right;
}

position-try-fallbacks

The position-try-options was renamed to position-try-fallbacks (#10395).

.target {
  /* from */
  position-try-options: flip-block, --smaller-target;

  /* to */
  position-try-fallbacks: flip-block, --smaller-target;
}

inset-area()

The inset-area() wrapper function doesn’t exist anymore for the position-try-fallbacks (#10320), you can just write the values without the wrapper

.target {
  /* from */
  position-try-options: inset-area(top left);

  /* to */
  position-try-fallbacks: top left;
}

anchor(center)

In the beginning, if we wanted to center a target from the center, we would have to write this convoluted syntax

.target {
  --center: anchor(--x 50%);
  --half-distance: min(abs(0% - var(--center)), abs(100% - var(--center)));
	
  left: calc(var(--center) - var(--half-distance));
  right: calc(var(--center) - var(--half-distance));
}

The CWSSG working group resolved (#8979) to add the anchor(center) argument for much-needed brevity.

.target {
  left: anchor(center);
}

Bugs!

Some bugs snuck into browser implementations of qnchor positioning. For example, the spec says that if an element doesn’t have a default anchor element, then the position-area property does nothing. This is a known issue (#10500) but it’s still possible to replicate, so please, just don’t do it.

The following code…

.container {
  position: relative;
}

.element {
  position: absolute;
  position-area: center;
  margin: auto;
}

…centers the .element inside its container as we can see in this demo from Temani Afif:

Another example comes from the position-visibility property. If your anchor element is off-screen, you typically want its target to be hidden as well. The spec says the default is anchors-visible, but browsers go with always instead.

Chrome currently isn’t reflecting the spec. It indeed is using always as the initial value. But the spec’s text is intentional — if your anchor is off-screen or otherwise scrolled off, you usually want it to hide (#10425).

Anchor positioning accessibility

While anchor positioning’s most straightforward use case is for stuff like tooltips, infoboxes, and popovers, it can be used for a lot of other stuff as well. Check this example by Silvestar Bistrović, for example, where he connects elements with lines. He’s tethered elements together for decorative purposes, so anchor positioning doesn’t mean there is a semantic relationship between the elements. As a consequence, non-visual agents, like screen readers, are left in the dark about how to interpret two seemingly unrelated elements.

If we’re aiming to link a tooltip to another element, we need to set up a relationship in the DOM and let anchor positioning handle the visuals. Happily, there are APIs (like the Popover API) that do this for us, even establishing an anchor relationship that we can take advantage of to create more compelling visuals.

In a general way, the spec describes an approach to create this relationship using ARIA attributes such as the aria-details or aria-describedby, along the role attribute on the target element.

So, while we could attach the following two elements…

<div class="anchor">anchor</div>
<div class="toolip">toolip</div>

…using anchor positioning:

.anchor {
  anchor-name: --my-anchor;
}

.toolip {
  position: absolute;
  position-anchor: --my-anchor;
  position-area: top;
}

…but screen readers only see two elements next to one another without any remarked relationship. That’s a bummer for accessibility, but we can easily fix it using the corresponding ARIA attribute:

<div class="anchor" aria-describedby="tooltipInfo">anchor</div>
<div class="toolip" role="tooltip" id="tooltipInfo">toolip</div>

And now they are both visually and semantically linked together! It would just be better if could pull it off without ARIA.

Conclusion

Being confused by a new feature just to finally understand it is one of the most satisfying experiences anyone in programming can feel. While there are still some things about anchor positioning that can be (and are) confusing, I’m pleased to say the CSS-Tricks Almanac now has a deluge of information to help clarify things.

The most exciting thing is that anchor positioning is still in an early stage. That means there are many more confusing things coming for us to discover and learn!


Anchor Positioning Quirks originally published on CSS-Tricks, which is part of the DigitalOcean family. You should get the newsletter.

Why Anticipatory Design Isn’t Working For Businesses

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Consider the early days of the internet, when websites like NBC News and Amazon cluttered their pages with flashing banners and labyrinthine menus. In the early 2000s, Steve Krug’s book Don’t Make Me Think arrived like a lighthouse in a storm, advocating for simplicity and user-centric design.

Today’s digital world is flooded with choices, information, and data, which is both exciting and overwhelming. Unlike Krug’s time, today, the problem isn’t interaction complexity but opacity. AI-powered solutions often lack transparency and explainability, raising concerns about user trust and accountability. The era of click-and-command is fading, giving way to a more seamless and intelligent relationship between humans and machines.

Expanding on Krug’s Call for Clarity: The Pillars of Anticipatory Design

Krug’s emphasis on clarity in design is more relevant than ever. In anticipatory design, clarity is not just about simplicity or ease of use — it’s about transparency and accountability. These two pillars are crucial but often missing as businesses navigate this new paradigm. Users today find themselves in a digital landscape that is not only confusing but increasingly intrusive. AI predicts their desires based on past behavior but rarely explains how these predictions are made, leading to growing mistrust.

Transparency is the foundation of clarity. It involves openly communicating how AI-driven decisions are made, what data is being collected, and how it is being used to anticipate needs. By demystifying these processes, designers can alleviate user concerns about privacy and control, thereby building trust.

Accountability complements transparency by ensuring that anticipatory systems are designed with ethical considerations in mind. This means creating mechanisms for users to understand, question, and override automated decisions if needed. When users feel that the system is accountable to them, their trust in the technology — and the brand — deepens.

What Makes a Service Anticipatory?

Image AI like a waiter at a restaurant. Without AI, they wait for you to interact with them and place your order. But with anticipatory design powered by AI and ML, the waiter can analyze your past orders (historical data) and current behavior (contextual data) — perhaps, by noticing you always start with a glass of sparkling water.

This proactive approach has evolved since the late 1990s, with early examples like Amazon’s recommendation engine and TiVo’s predictive recording. These pioneering services demonstrated the potential of predictive analytics and ML to create personalized, seamless user experiences.

Amazon’s Recommendation Engine (Late 1990s)

Amazon was a pioneer in using data to predict and suggest products to customers, setting the standard for personalized experiences in e-commerce.

TiVo (1999)

TiVo’s ability to learn users’ viewing habits and automatically record shows marked an early step toward predictive, personalized entertainment.

Netflix’s Recommendation System (2006)

Netflix began offering personalized movie recommendations based on user ratings and viewing history in 2006. It helped popularize the idea of anticipatory design in the digital entertainment space.

How Businesses Can Achieve Anticipatory Design

Designing for anticipation is designing for a future that is not here yet but has already started moving toward us.

Designing for anticipation involves more than reacting to current trends; it requires businesses to plan strategically for future user needs. Two critical concepts in this process are forecasting and backcasting.

  • Forecasting analyzes past trends and data to predict future outcomes, helping businesses anticipate user needs.
  • Backcasting starts with a desired future outcome and works backward to identify the steps needed to achieve that goal.

Think of it like planning a dream vacation. Forecasting would involve looking at your past trips to guess where you might go next. But backcasting lets you pick your ideal destination first, then plan the perfect itinerary to get you there.

Forecasting: A Core Concept for Future-Oriented Design

This method helps in planning and decision-making based on probable future scenarios. Consider Netflix, which uses forecasting to analyze viewers’ past viewing habits and predict what they might want to watch next. By leveraging data from millions of users, Netflix can anticipate individual preferences and serve personalized recommendations that keep users engaged and satisfied.

Backcasting: Planning From the Desired Future

Backcasting takes a different approach. Instead of using data to predict the future, it starts with defining a desired future outcome — a clear user intent. The process then works backward to identify the steps needed to achieve that goal. This goal-oriented approach crafts an experience that actively guides users toward their desired future state.

For instance, a financial planning app might start with a user’s long-term financial goal, such as saving for retirement, and then design an experience that guides the user through each step necessary to reach that goal, from budgeting tips to investment recommendations.

Integrating Forecasting and Backcasting In Anticipatory Design

The true power of anticipatory design emerges when businesses efficiently integrate both forecasting and backcasting into their design processes.

For example, Tesla’s approach to electric vehicles exemplifies this integration. By forecasting market trends and user preferences, Tesla can introduce features that appeal to users today. Simultaneously, by backcasting from a vision of a sustainable future, Tesla designs its vehicles and infrastructure to guide society toward a world where electric cars are the norm and carbon emissions are significantly reduced.

Over-Promising and Under-Delivering: The Pitfalls of Anticipatory Design

As businesses increasingly adopt anticipatory design, the integration of forecasting and backcasting becomes essential. Forecasting allows businesses to predict and respond to immediate user needs, while backcasting ensures these responses align with long-term goals. Despite its potential, anticipatory design often fails in execution, leaving few examples of success.

Over the past decade, I’ve observed and documented the rise and fall of several ambitious anticipatory design ventures. Among them, three — Digit, LifeBEAM Vi Sense Headphones, and Mint — highlight the challenges of this approach.

Digit: Struggling with Contextual Understanding

Digit aimed to simplify personal finance with algorithms that automatically saved money based on user spending. However, the service often missed the mark, lacking the contextual awareness necessary to accurately assess users’ real-time financial situations. This led to unexpected withdrawals, frustrating users, especially those living paycheck to paycheck. The result was a breakdown in trust, with the service feeling more intrusive than supportive.

LifeBEAM Vi Sense Headphones: Complexity and User Experience Challenges

LifeBEAM Vi Sense Headphones was marketed as an AI-driven fitness coach, promising personalized guidance during workouts. In practice, the AI struggled to deliver tailored coaching, offering generic and unresponsive advice. As a result, users found the experience difficult to navigate, ultimately limiting the product’s appeal and effectiveness. This disconnection between the promised personalized experience and the actual user experience left many disappointed.

Mint: Misalignment with User Goals

Mint aimed to empower users to manage their finances by providing automated budgeting tools and financial advice. While the service had the potential to anticipate user needs, users often found that the suggestions were not tailored to their unique financial situations, resulting in generic advice that did not align with their personal goals.

The lack of personalized, actionable steps led to a mismatch between user expectations and service delivery. This misalignment caused some users to disengage, feeling that Mint was not fully attuned to their unique financial journeys.

The Risks of Over-promising and Under-Delivering

The stories of Digit, LifeBEAM Vi Sense, and Mint underscore a common pitfall: over-promising and under-delivering. These services focused too much on predictive power and not enough on user experience. When anticipatory systems fail to consider individual nuances, they breed frustration rather than satisfaction, highlighting the importance of aligning design with human experience.

Digit’s approach to automated savings, for instance, became problematic when users found its decisions opaque and unpredictable. Similarly, LifeBEAM’s Vi Sense headphones struggled to meet diverse user needs, while Mint’s rigid tools failed to offer the personalized insights users expected. These examples illustrate the delicate balance anticipatory design must strike between proactive assistance and user control.

Failure to Evolve with User Needs

Many anticipatory services rely heavily on data-driven forecasting, but predictions can fall short without understanding the broader user context. Mint initially provided value with basic budgeting tools but failed to evolve with users’ growing needs for more sophisticated financial advice. Digit, too, struggled to adapt to different financial habits, leading to dissatisfaction and limited success.

Complexity and Usability Issues

Balancing the complexity of predictive systems with usability and transparency is a key challenge in anticipatory design.

When systems become overly complex, as seen with LifeBEAM Vi Sense headphones, users may find them difficult to navigate or control, compromising trust and engagement. Mint’s generic recommendations, born from a failure to align immediate user needs with long-term goals, further illustrate the risks of complexity without clarity.

Privacy and Trust Issues

Trust is critical in anticipatory design, particularly in services handling sensitive data like finance or health. Digit and Mint both encountered trust issues as users grew skeptical of how decisions were made and whether these services truly had their best interests in mind. Without clear communication and control, even the most sophisticated systems risk alienating users.

Inadequate Handling of Edge Cases and Unpredictable Scenarios

While forecasting and backcasting work well for common scenarios, they can struggle with edge cases or unpredictable user behaviors. If an anticipatory service can’t handle these effectively, it risks providing a poor user experience and, in the worst-case scenario, harming the user. Anticipatory systems must be prepared to handle edge cases and unpredictable scenarios.

LifeBEAM Vi Sense headphones struggled when users deviated from expected fitness routines, offering a one-size-fits-all experience that failed to adapt to individual needs. This highlights the importance of allowing users control, even when a system proactively assists them.

Designing for Anticipatory Experiences
Anticipatory design should empower users to achieve their goals, not just automate tasks.

We can follow a layered approach to plan a service that can evolve according to user actions and explicit ever-evolving intent.

But how do we design for intent without misaligning anticipation and user control or mismatching user expectations and service delivery?

At the core of this approach is intent — the primary purpose or goal that the design must achieve. Surrounding this are workflows, which represent the structured tasks to achieve the intent. Finally, algorithms analyze user data and optimize these workflows.

For instance, Thrive (see the image below), a digital wellness platform, aligns algorithms and workflows with the core intent of improving well-being. By anticipating user needs and offering personalized programs, Thrive helps users achieve sustained behavior change.

It perfectly exemplifies the three-layered concentric representation for achieving behavior change through anticipatory design:

1. Innermost layer: Intent

Improve overall well-being: Thrive’s core intent is to help users achieve a healthier and more fulfilling life. This encompasses aspects like managing stress, improving sleep quality, and boosting energy levels.

2. Middle layer: Workflows

Personalized programs and support: Thrive uses user data (sleep patterns, activity levels, mood) to create programs tailored to their specific needs and goals. These programs involve various workflows, such as:

  • Guided meditations and breathing exercises to manage stress and anxiety.
  • Personalized sleep routines aimed at improving sleep quality.
  • Educational content and coaching tips to promote healthy habits and lifestyle changes.

3. Outermost layer: Algorithms

Data analysis and personalized recommendations: Thrive utilizes algorithms to analyze user data and generate actionable insights. These algorithms perform tasks like the following:

  • Identify patterns in sleep, activity, and mood to understand user challenges.
  • Predict user behavior to recommend interventions that address potential issues.
  • Optimize program recommendations based on user progress and data analysis.

By aligning algorithms and workflows with the core intent of improving well-being, Thrive provides a personalized and proactive approach to behavior change. Here’s how it benefits users:

  • Sustained behavior change: Personalized programs and ongoing support empower users to develop healthy habits for the long term.
  • Data-driven insights: User data analysis helps users gain valuable insights into their well-being and identify areas for improvement.
  • Proactive support: Anticipates potential issues and recommends interventions before problems arise.
The Future of Anticipatory Design: Combining Anticipation with Foresight

Anticipatory design is inherently future-oriented, making it both appealing and challenging. To succeed, businesses must combine anticipation — predicting future needs — with foresight, a systematic approach to analyzing and preparing for future changes.

Foresight involves considering alternative future scenarios and making informed decisions to navigate toward desired outcomes. For example, Digit and Mint struggled because they didn’t adequately handle edge cases or unpredictable scenarios, a failure in their foresight strategy (see an image below).

As mentioned, while forecasting and backcasting work well for common scenarios, they can struggle with edge cases or unpredictable user behaviors. Under anticipatory design, if we demote foresight for a second plan, the business will fail to account for and prepare for emerging trends and disruptive changes. Strategic foresight helps companies to prepare for the future and develop strategies to address possible challenges and opportunities.

The Foresight process generally involves interrelated activities, including data research, trend analysis, planning scenarios, and impact assessment. The ultimate goal is to gain a broader and deeper understanding of the future to make more informed and strategic decisions in the design process and foresee possible frictions and pitfalls in the user experience.

Actionable Insights for Designer

  • Enhance contextual awareness
    Help data scientists or engineers to ensure that the anticipatory systems can understand and respond to the full context of user needs, not just historical data. Plan for pitfalls so you can design safety measures where the user can control the system.
  • Maintain user control
    Provide users with options to customize or override automated decisions, ensuring they feel in control of their experiences.
  • Align short-term predictions with long-term goals
    Use forecasting and backcasting to create a balanced approach that meets immediate needs while guiding users toward their long-term objectives.
Proposing an Anticipatory Design Framework

Predicting the future is no easy task. However, design can borrow foresight techniques to imagine, anticipate, and shape a future where technology seamlessly integrates with users evolving needs. To effectively implement anticipatory design, it’s essential to balance human control with AI automation. Here’s a 3-step approach to integrate future thinking into your workflow:

  1. Anticipate Directions of Change
    Identify major trends shaping the future.
  2. Imagine Alternative Scenarios
    Explore potential futures to guide impactful design decisions.
  3. Shape Our Choices
    Leverage these scenarios to align design with user needs and long-term goals.

This proposed framework (see an image above) aims to integrate forecasting and backcasting while emphasizing user intent, transparency, and continuous improvement, ensuring that businesses create experiences that are both predictive and deeply aligned with user needs.

Step 1: Anticipate Directions of Change

Objective: Identify the major trends and forces shaping the future landscape.

Components:

1. Understand the User’s Intent

  • User Research: Conduct in-depth user research through interviews, surveys, and observations to uncover user goals, motivations, pain points, and long-term aspirations or Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD). This foundational step helps clearly define the user’s intent.
  • Persona Development: Develop detailed user personas that represent the target audience, including their long-term goals and desired outcomes. Prioritize understanding how the service can adapt in real-time to changing user needs, offering recommendations, or taking actions aligned with the persona’s current context.

2. Forecasting: Predicting Near-Term User Needs

  • Data Collection and Analysis: Collaborate closely with data scientists and data engineers to analyze historical data (past interactions), user behavior, and external factors. This collaboration ensures that predictive analytics enhance overall user experience, allowing designers to better understand the implications of data on user behaviors.
  • Predictive Modeling: Implement continuous learning algorithms that refine predictions over time. Regularly assess how these models evolve, adapting to users’ changing needs and circumstances.
  • Explore the Delphi Method: This is a structured communication technique that gathers expert opinions to reach a consensus on future developments. It’s particularly useful for exploring complex issues with uncertain outcomes. Use the Delphi Method to gather insights from industry experts, user researchers, and stakeholders about future user needs and the best strategies to meet those needs. The consensus achieved can help in clearly defining the long-term goals and desired outcomes.

Activities:

  • Conduct interviews and workshops with experts using the Delphi Method to validate key trends.
  • Analyze data and trends to forecast future directions.

Step 2: Imagine Alternative Scenarios

Objective: Explore a range of potential futures based on these changing directions.

Components:

1. Scenario Planning

  • Scenario Development: It involves creating detailed, plausible future scenarios based on various external factors, such as technological advancements, social trends, and economic changes. Develop multiple future scenarios that represent different possible user contexts and their impact on their needs.
  • Scenario Analysis: From these scenarios, you can outline the long-term goals that users might have in each scenario and design services that anticipate and address these needs. Assess how these scenarios impact user needs and experiences.

2. Backcasting: Designing from the Desired Future

  • Define Desired Outcomes: Clearly outline the long-term goals or future states that users aim to achieve. Use backcasting to reduce cognitive load by designing a service that anticipates future needs, streamlining user interactions, and minimizing decision-making efforts.
    • Use Visioning Planning: This is a creative process that involves imagining the ideal future state you want to achieve. It helps in setting clear, long-term goals by focusing on the desired outcomes rather than current constraints. Facilitate workshops or brainstorming sessions with stakeholders to co-create a vision of the future. Define what success looks like from the user’s perspective and use this vision to guide the backcasting process.
  • Identify Steps to Reach Goals: Reverse-engineer the user journey by starting from the desired future state and working backward. Identify the necessary steps and milestones and ensure these are communicated transparently to users, allowing them control over their experience.
  • Create Roadmaps: Develop detailed roadmaps that outline the sequence of actions needed to transition from the current state to the desired future state. These roadmaps should anticipate obstacles, respect privacy, and avoid manipulative behaviors, empowering users rather than overwhelming them.

Activities:

  • Develop and analyze alternative scenarios to explore various potential futures.
  • Use backcasting to create actionable roadmaps from these scenarios, ensuring they align with long-term goals.

Step 3: Shape Our Choices

Objective: Leverage these scenarios to spark new ideas and guide impactful design decisions.

Components:

1. Integrate into the Human-Centered Design Process

  • Iterative Design with Forecasting and Backcasting: Embed insights from forecasting and backcasting into every stage of the design process. Use these insights to inform user research, prototype development, and usability testing, ensuring that solutions address both predicted future needs and desired outcomes. Continuously refine designs based on user feedback.
  • Agile Methodologies: Adopt agile development practices to remain flexible and responsive. Ensure that the service continuously learns from user interactions and feedback, refining its predictions and improving its ability to anticipate needs.

2. Implement and Monitor: Ensuring Ongoing Relevance

  • User Feedback Loops: Establish continuous feedback mechanisms to refine predictive models and workflows. Use this feedback to adjust forecasts and backcasted plans as necessary, keeping the design aligned with evolving user expectations.
  • Automation Tools: Collaborate with data scientists and engineers to deploy automation tools that execute workflows and monitor progress toward goals. These tools should adapt based on new data, evolving alongside user behavior and emerging trends.
  • Performance Metrics: Define key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the effectiveness, accuracy, and quality of the anticipatory experience. Regularly review these metrics to ensure that the system remains aligned with intended outcomes.
  • Continuous Improvement: Maintain a cycle of continuous improvement where the system learns from each interaction, refining its predictions and recommendations over time to stay relevant and useful.
    • Use Trend Analysis: This involves identifying and analyzing patterns in data over time to predict future developments. This method helps you understand the direction in which user behaviors, technologies, and market conditions are heading. Use trend analysis to identify emerging trends that could influence user needs in the future. This will inform the desired outcomes by highlighting what users might require or expect from a service as these trends evolve.

Activities:

  • Implement design solutions based on scenario insights and iterate based on user feedback.
  • Regularly review and adjust designs using performance metrics and continuous improvement practices.
Conclusion: Navigating the Future of Anticipatory Design

Anticipatory design holds immense potential to revolutionize user experiences by predicting and fulfilling needs before they are even articulated. However, as seen in the examples discussed, the gap between expectation and execution can lead to user dissatisfaction and erode trust.

To navigate the future of anticipatory design successfully, businesses must prioritize transparency, accountability, and user empowerment. By enhancing contextual awareness, maintaining user control, and aligning short-term predictions with long-term goals, companies can create experiences that are not only innovative but also deeply resonant with their users’ needs.

Moreover, combining anticipation with foresight allows businesses to prepare for a range of future scenarios, ensuring that their designs remain relevant and effective even as circumstances change. The proposed 3-step framework — anticipating directions of change, imagining alternative scenarios, and shaping our choices — provides a practical roadmap for integrating these principles into the design process.

As we move forward, the challenge will be to balance the power of AI with the human need for clarity, control, and trust. By doing so, businesses can fulfill the promise of anticipatory design, creating products and services that are not only efficient and personalized but also ethical and user-centric.

In the end,

The success of anticipatory design will depend on its ability to enhance, rather than replace, the human experience.

It is a tool to empower users, not to dictate their choices. When done right, anticipatory design can lead to a future where technology seamlessly integrates with our lives, making everyday experiences simpler, more intuitive, and ultimately more satisfying.



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120+ Best Free PowerPoint Templates (PPT) 2024

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Not everyone can afford to buy premium PowerPoint templates to create their slideshows. But, that doesn’t mean you have to settle for a default template. There are dozens of incredible free PowerPoint templates to try out!

A great thing about the design community is that there are designers out there who willingly share their amazing work for free of charge, including gorgeous free PowerPoint templates.

To help you save some money, we scoured the web and handpicked a collection of the best free PowerPoint templates with modern and professional designs that you can use to make various types of presentations. Good luck with your presentation!

Just looking for a stylish free Powerpoint Template? No problem. Let’s dive into our collection of the best free PowerPoint templates!

What Type of Free PowerPoint Template Do You Need?

We’ve broken our collection down into different categories, so you can quickly find just the right PPT template for your project! Almost of all of these PPT templates are free, but at the start of each section you’ll see one or two premium ones, just so you have that option to choose as well.

Free Professional PowerPoint Templates

Selfone – Free Professional Presentation Template

Selfone - Free Professional Presentation Template 2

Selfone is an amazing presentation template that features lots of useful slides with professional and modern designs. There are 32 unique slides in this template and it’s ideal for making various types of slideshows for businesses, brands, and creatives. It comes in PowerPoint, Keynote, and Google Slides formats too.

Free Consulting Presentation PowerPoint Template

Free Consulting Presentation PowerPoint Template

This free PowerPoint template is great for creating presentations for consultants. It features a set of modern and stylish slides featuring image placeholders, shapes, and editable graphics.

Free Geometric Professional Presentation Template

Free Geometric Professional Presentation Template

The colorful geometric shapes are what make this PowerPoint template one of the best on our list. This template is also available in Google Slides and Keynote formats. And you can use the free version of the template to create a basic slideshow for your professional project.

Ash – Free Professional PowerPoint Template

Ash - Free Professional PowerPoint Template

Ash is a modern and stylish PowerPoint template featuring a dark color theme. This template is made with professionals in mind and it’s especially suitable for event and product presentations. The free version of the template can be used to create a simple presentation.

Free Artificial Intelligence PowerPoint Template

Free Artificial Intelligence PowerPoint Template

This free PowerPoint template is ideal for making professional presentations for showcasing startups, ideas, and products related to artificial intelligence. The template features 7 unique slides with creative charts, timelines, and more.

Free Tech Slides PowerPoint Presentation Template

Free Tech Slides PowerPoint Presentation Template

You can use this PowerPoint template to design attractive slideshows for technology-themed presentations. It comes with 10 different slide layouts with gradient colors, editable shapes, and text. You can also download it in Google Slides format.

Hendrix – Free Dark Professional PowerPoint Template

Hendrix - Free Dark Professional PowerPoint Template

Another free and professional PowerPoint template with a dark theme. This template comes in both PowerPoint and Google Slides versions. You can easily customize the slide layouts to create various types of presentations.

Pro Portfolio PPT Template

Agency Portfolio PowerPoint Template

Every business needs a presentation template for showcasing their portfolio. This PowerPoint template is perfect for that task. It comes with 50 unique slides featuring a minimalist design that effectively highlights your portfolio in every slide. The template also includes editable vector graphics, infographics, and icons.

Aesthic – Free Multipurpose PowerPoint Template

Aesthic - Free Multipurpose PowerPoint Template

It’s hard to believe that this PowerPoint template is free to download. The modern and unique design of this presentation gives it a truly professional look. It’s perfect for creating presentations for showcasing your portfolio, creative projects, and more.

Dolor – Free Professional Presentation Template

Dolor - Professional Presentation Template

This free PowerPoint template also comes with modern and professional slide design. It uses a perfect combination of visuals and minimalism to create a very attractive slide layout. You can use it for free with your creative projects.

Kitulah – Free Dark Professional PowerPoint Template

Kitulah - Free Dark Professional PowerPoint Template

The dark color theme of this PowerPoint template adds an elegant look to this entire presentation design. It’s perfect for creating slideshows for modern brands and startups.

DSGN – Free Lookbook Presentation Template

DSGN - Free Lookbook Presentation Template

This free PowerPoint template comes with 90 unique slide layouts you can use to make slideshows for creative portfolios, photography, and fashion related presentations. The template is also available in 5 color schemes and it’s free to use with your personal projects.

Enable – Free Modern PowerPoint Template

Enable - Free Modern PowerPoint Template

Enable is a modern PowerPoint template featuring a set of minimal slide designs that are most suitable for making creative and business-related presentations. The template comes with an easily editable design and image placeholders for easily replacing the images.

Look – Free Fashion PowerPoint Template

Look - Free Fashion PowerPoint Template

Look is an elegant PowerPoint template that features a highly visual design that’s most suitable for making fashion and photography related presentations. The template includes 55 unique slides and comes in two different colors.

Free Creative Portfolio PowerPoint Template

Free Creative Portfolio PowerPoint Template

If you’re looking for a stylish PowerPoint template to create a simple portfolio to showcase your work and services, this free template is perfect for you. It includes 20 unique slides that are designed to make highly visual slideshows filled with large images.

Project Proposal – Free Professional PowerPoint Template

Project Proposal - Free Professional PowerPoint Template

This is a professional PowerPoint template you can use for free to create proposals for various client and freelance projects. This template includes 19 unique slides with an icon pack, illustrations, and much more.

Resume Presentation – Free PowerPoint Template

Resume Presentation - Free PowerPoint Template

This minimal PowerPoint template is ideal for showcasing your portfolio and resume. It comes with 14 unique slides with editable vector graphics and image placeholders. The template is available in Google Slides version as well.

Free Modern Portfolio PowerPoint Template

Free Modern Portfolio PowerPoint Template

Another free portfolio PowerPoint template with a set of creative slides. This template also includes 20 unique slides with editable layouts, image placeholders, icons, and much more.

Wagner – Free Multipurpose PowerPoint Template

Wagner - Free Multipurpose PowerPoint Template

Wagner is a multipurpose PowerPoint template that comes with a modern and stylish design that allows you to design all kinds of presentations. Each slide in the template is fully customizable and features editable vector shapes and elements as well.

Minimal – Simple Free PowerPoint Template

Minimal - Simple Free PowerPoint Template

This minimal free PowerPoint template is perfect for crafting slideshow for presenting personal portfolio as well as creative agency presentations. The template is fully customizable as well.

Xara – Free PowerPoint Template

Xara - Free Powerpoint Template

Xara is a modern PowerPoint template most suitable for making minimal slideshows for business and corporate presentations. It includes 9 unique slides with editable layouts, graphics, and charts.

Red White – Free PowerPoint Template

Red White - Free Powerpoint Template

Red White is a modern free PowerPoint presentation template you can use to make slideshows for businesses, brands, and creatives. The template includes 30 unique slides with editable designs.

Free Business PowerPoint Templates

Business Cost Analysis – Free PowerPoint Template

Business Cost Analysis - Free PowerPoint Template

This is a creative PowerPoint template you can use to present your business cost analysis during meetings. It features colorful slides with attractive illustrations across 35 different slide designs.

Project Proposal – Free PowerPoint Template

Project Proposal - Free PowerPoint Template

A simple, minimal, and clean PowerPoint template for creating professional business presentations. It’s designed with project proposal slideshows in mind. You can fully customize each slide to your preference.

Monthly Strategy Meeting – Free PowerPoint Template

Monthly Strategy Meeting - Free PowerPoint Template

Use this free PowerPoint template to create a fun and playful presentation for your monthly business strategy meetings. The template includes more than 30 slides with beautiful illustrations.

Construction Company Profile – Free PowerPoint Template

Construction Company Profile - Free PowerPoint Template

This free business PowerPoint template is made with construction companies in mind. It features 30 slides with modern designs and plenty of space for showcasing your properties with photos.

Business Action Plan – Free PowerPoint Template

Business Action Plan - Free PowerPoint Template

A highly minimalist and free PowerPoint template for business presentations. This template is ideal for creating an effective action plan for your company. The template includes 20 slides.

Free Retro Pixel Business PowerPoint Template

Free Retro Pixel Business PowerPoint Template

This is a free PowerPoint template that comes with colorful and creative slide designs inspired by retro-themed pixel graphics. It includes many stylish slide designs with dark color themes for creating attractive presentations for business meetings.

Free Geometric Shapes Marketing Plan for PowerPoint

Free Geometric Shapes Marketing Plan for PowerPoint

This free PowerPoint template comes with a set of slides full of colorful geometric shapes and patterns. It’s designed with marketing agencies in mind and you can use it to create attractive marketing plans for your business meetings.

Free Content Strategy Meeting PowerPoint Template

Free Content Strategy Meeting PowerPoint Template

Create the perfect presentation for your content strategy meetings with this free PowerPoint template. It includes many beautiful slide layouts featuring gradient color backgrounds and image placeholders. You can fully customize each slide to your preference.

Free Abstract Shapes Business PowerPoint Template

Free Abstract Shapes Business PowerPoint Template

You can download this PowerPoint template for free to create modern business presentations. It has a set of minimalist slides featuring abstract shapes with rough textures.

Free Morph Business Plan PowerPoint Template

Free Morph Business Plan PowerPoint Template

This free PowerPoint template comes with more than 40 slides featuring modern backgrounds and trendy content layouts. It’s especially perfect for creating business plan slide decks and presentations.

Free Company Profile Powerpoint Template

This free company profile PowerPoint template provides a comprehensive overview of your organization in a 20-slide presentation. Designed to showcase a brand’s identity, it covers the company’s journey, from establishment to its current successes, capturing its mission, vision, and values. With customizable slides, the template features a Presentation Agenda, Financial Reports, Business SWOT Analysis, Gantt chart, various graphical charts, and a Company Timeline.

Cranford – Free Business Presentation PPT

Cranford - Free Business Presentation PPT

Cranford is a free PowerPoint template that includes a set of professional slide layouts. It’s most suitable for making modern business and agency slideshows. It comes in Google Slides and Keynote formats too.

Howard – Free Business PowerPoint Template

Howard Free Business PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template is also available in multiple formats. You can use it to create presentations for small businesses as well as corporate brands. There are 8 unique slides in this template.

Merville – Free Business PowerPoint Template

Merville - Free Business PowerPoint Template

Merville is a free PowerPoint template that includes very professional-looking slides. It has highly visual slides with easily editable designs. The template is suitable for all types of business presentations.

Free Business Meeting PowerPoint Template

Free Business Meeting PowerPoint Template

This is a creative PowerPoint template that comes with a set of beautiful slides. There are 24 unique slides in this template with editable graphs, timelines, mockups, and more. It’s available in Google Slides version too.

Free Creative Agency PowerPoint Template

Free Creative Agency PowerPoint Template

This is a huge PowerPoint template that includes more than 100 different slides. Of course, the full version comes at a price. But if you scroll all the way down on the page, you’ll find a free version of the template that’s also pretty great for making a simple business presentation.

Free 2022 Marketing Plan Infographic PowerPoint Template

Free 2022 Marketing Plan Infographic PowerPoint Template

This is a must-have presentation template for marketing agencies and businesses. It includes creative infographic slides you can use to showcase your marketing plan and the performance of your campaigns. It includes 32 slides and it’s available in Google Slides format too.

Free Electric Scooter Company Profile PPTX

Free Electric Scooter Company Profile PPTX

This free PowerPoint template is ideal for making company profiles. It’s especially perfect for making company profile presentations for startups and modern brands. The template includes 28 fully customizable slides with free icons and graphics.

Free Human Resource Meeting PowerPoint Template

Free Human Resource Meeting PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template comes with a set of professional slide designs you can use to create presentations for human resource meetings for all kinds of businesses. There are 24 unique slides included in this template and it comes in Google Slides format as well.

Free Gradient Corners Business PowerPoint Template

Free Gradient Corners Business PowerPoint Template

The elegant design of this PowerPoint template makes it a perfect choice for making business presentations. The template features 7 unique slides with colorful blue gradient corner designs.

Free Simple Business Executive PowerPoint Template

Free Simple Business Executive PowerPoint Template

You can use this free PowerPoint template to make simple presentations for corporate brands and businesses. The template includes 8 editable slides with professional layouts. It comes in Google Slides version as well.

Digital Marketing Strategy PowerPoint Template

Digital Marketing Strategy - Powerpoint Template

Using a creative and bold design in your PowerPoint slideshow is a great way to capture attention and make your presentation stand out. This beautifully designed PowerPoint template will help you achieve that goal. It comes with more than 40 slides that feature a unique design made specifically for marketing presentations. It’s also available in 2 different color themes.

Bara – Free Modern Business PowerPoint Theme

Bara - Free Modern Business PowerPoint Theme

Bara is the perfect free PowerPoint template for creating business presentations. It features a modern design and comes with easily editable slide layouts. In addition, it’s available in Keynote version as well.

Clifton Free Business Presentation Template

Clifton Free Business Presentation Template

This modern and free presentation template comes in multiple formats. You can use it to create a stylish presentation to promote business services, brands, and products as well.

Barnwell Free Business Presentation Template

Barnwell Free Business Presentation Template

Barnwell is a simple yet effective presentation template for creating business and agency slideshows. This template comes in multiple formats including PowerPoint, Keynote, and Google Slides.

Free Onboarding Meeting PowerPoint Template

Free Onboarding Meeting PowerPoint Template

This free PowerPoint template is perfect for creating a presentation for your new hire onboarding meetings. It includes 33 different slide layouts with easily editable designs. The template comes in the Google Slides version as well.

Free Multipurpose PowerPoint Presentation Template

Free Multipurpose PowerPoint Presentation Template

You can use this PowerPoint template to design clean and minimalist presentations for various business meetings. It includes 27 different slide designs you can customize to your preference.

Free Construction & Real Estate PowerPoint Template

Free Construction & Real Estate PowerPoint Template

If you’re preparing a presentation for a construction project or a real estate property, this PowerPoint template will come in handy. There are 19 unique slides in this template made specifically with construction and real estate businesses in mind.

Future – Free Business PowerPoint Template

Future - Free Business PowerPoint Template

A simple and clean PowerPoint template for making professional and business presentations. This template comes with 25 unique slide layouts featuring minimalist designs. Each slide is fully customizable and features master slide layouts as well.

Business Plan Free Powerpoint Presentation

Business Plan Free Powerpoint Presentation

This free PowerPoint template is a great choice for making slideshows for presenting your business plans and strategies in meetings. It includes 20 unique slides. You’ll need to signup for a free account on the website to download the file.

SEO Proposal – Free PowerPoint Template

SEO Proposal - Free Powerpoint Template

This creative PowerPoint template is designed specifically for digital markers and agencies. You can use this to craft an effective slideshow that wins over your marketing clients. It’s free to download and use.

Conference Pitch Deck PowerPoint Template

Conference Pitch Deck Powerpoint Template

This is a pitch deck PowerPoint template featuring a set of slides made for designing slideshows for business and conference presentations. It includes customizable vectors, diagrams, shapes, and lots more as well.

Annul Report – Free Business PowerPoint Template

Annul Report - Free Business PowerPoint Template

A free business PowerPoint template you can use to create annual report presentations for various projects and companies. This template includes 22 unique slides with easily customizable layouts.

Beexey – Free Business PowerPoint Template

Beexey - Free Business PowerPoint Template

Another modern PowerPoint template specially made for businesses and agencies. This template features 20 unique slides with icons, editable graphics, and animations.

Vision – Free Business PowerPoint Template

Vision - Free Business PowerPoint Template

Vision is a modern PowerPoint template you can use to design business and corporate presentations. The free template comes in multiple styles and color versions, which you can download individually to your preference.

Casper – Free PowerPoint Presentation Template

Casper - Free Powerpoint Presentation Template

Casper is a creative and minimalist PowerPoint template you can use to create presentations for startups and personal portfolios. The template includes 60 unique slides featuring transition animations, infographics, and more.

Minta – Business Free PowerPoint Template

Minta - Business Free Powerpoint Template

Minta is a free PowerPoint template most suitable for making slideshows for presentations related to business and marketing. It comes with 21 unique and customizable slides in widescreen layout.

Business Report Free PowerPoint Template

Business Report Free PowerPoint Template

Business Report is a professional PowerPoint template featuring 40 unique slides. The template is available in 5 color schemes and in both animated and static versions.

Annual Report – Free PowerPoint Template

Annual Report - Free PowerPoint Template

Another great free PowerPoint template made specifically for making annual report presentations. It’s most suitable for corporate and business presentations. The template is free to use with personal and business projects.

Window – Free PowerPoint Template

Window - Free PowerPoint Template

Window is a creative and minimalist PowerPoint presentation template most suitable for startups and creative agencies. The template comes with 25 unique slides filled with stylish designs and its available in 5 pre-made color schemes.

Modern Business Free PowerPoint Template

Modern Business Free PowerPoint Template

This is a free PowerPoint template you can use to craft a slideshow for a modern small business or a startup. The template features 12 unique slides featuring retina-ready and beautiful designs.

Seattle – Simple PowerPoint Presentation Template

Seattle - Simple PowerPoint Presentation Template

Seattle is a clean and simple PowerPoint presentation template that includes a set of unique slides featuring stylish graphics, shapes, and elements. You can easily customize the template to your preference as well.

Free Animated PowerPoint Templates

Shining – Creative Animated PowerPoint Template

Shining - Creative Animated PowerPoint Template

Shining is an animated PowerPoint template that comes with 30 unique slides. The slides are available in 5 different color schemes. It also features master slide layouts, animations, editable graphics, illustrations, and much more as well.

Lookbook – Free Pastel PowerPoint Template

Lookbook - Free Pastel PowerPoint Template

Lookbook is a colorful free PowerPoint template that features a set of creative slides with attractive pastel colors. This template is perfect for showcasing professional and agency portfolios. All the slides can be easily customized to change colors as well.

Voodoo – Free Animated PowerPoint Template

Voodoo - Free Animated PowerPoint Template

VooDoo is a highly professional PowerPoint template that features more than 10 unique slide designs, which feature transition animations and much more. It’s also available in both light and dark color designs.

Dark Red – Free Elegant Black Powerpoint Template

Dark Red – ELegant Black Free Powerpoint Template

This professional, yet free, PowerPoint template comes with an elegant color theme that effectively highlights its content. The template is free to download and can be customized to your preference.

Stasia – Free PowerPoint Template

Stasia - Free PowerPoint Template

Stasia is a creative and free PowerPoint template you can use with your creative and professional presentations. It comes with 13 unique slides featuring editable graphics, charts, and lots of other elements.

Free Modern PowerPoint Templates

Free Modern & Minimal PowerPoint Template

Free Modern & Minimal PowerPoint Template

You can download this PowerPoint template for free to make beautiful slideshows for company profile, portfolio, and various other professional presentations. It includes 30 unique slides with animations and transitions.

Slide Pro – Free Modern Presentation Template

Slide Pro. - Free Modern Presentation Template

The minimal and clean design of this presentation template makes it an ideal choice for modern brands and design agencies. The template has 30 different slides with editable graphics and image placeholders.

Free Project Proposal PowerPoint Presentation Template

Project Proposal PowerPoint Presentation Template

Design professional-looking project proposals that win clients using this free PowerPoint template. It features 85 different slides with fully customizable layouts. The template includes transition animations as well.

UNCO – Simple Modern PowerPoint Template

UNCO - Simple Business PowerPoint Template

This modern business PowerPointe presentation template comes with more than 60 unique slides filled with editable vector shapes, graphics, icons, and so much more for making attractive presentations for all kinds of businesses. The template also includes lots of charts and graphs you can use to visualize data and make more compelling arguments.

Pale Dawn – Free Modern Fashion PowerPoint Template

Pale Dawn - Free Modern Fashion PowerPoint Template

Pale Dawn is a very modern PowerPoint template you can use to craft presentations to promote fashion and lifestyle products. The template comes with lots of customizable slides in PowerPoint and Keynote formats.

Mass Media – Free Agency Presentation Template

Mass Media - Free Agency Presentation Template

This free PowerPoint template is made specifically for marketing and media agencies. The template includes 25 unique slide layouts featuring editable shapes, colors, and fonts. It’s available in Google Slides version as well.

Heimat – Free Modern Business Presentation Template

Heimat - Free Modern Business Presentation Template

If you’re looking for a simple PowerPoint design with a minimal content layout, this template will come in handy. It lets you choose from 33 unique slides for crafting attractive presentations for showcasing projects and plans.

Born-Ink – Free Modern Event PowerPoint Template

Born-Ink - Free Modern Event PowerPoint Template

Featuring 10 unique slide designs, this modern PowerPoint template will allow you to design effective presentations for creative agencies as well as fashion brands. The template is free to use with your personal projects.

XGDragon – Modern Presentation Template

XGDragon - Modern Presentation Template

This free template comes with lots of unique slide designs for promoting modern brands through creative design. The template is ideal for creating a lookbook-style presentation and it’s free to use with commercial projects.

Minimalistic – Free Clean PowerPoint Template

Minimalistic - Free Clean PowerPoint Template

A highly minimalist and clean PowerPoint presentation that’s most suitable for making creative and professional slideshows. The template features an easily editable design, changeable colors, and editable vectors as well.

Air – Clean Free PowerPoint Template

Air - Clean Free PowerPoint Template

Air is a minimal and free PowerPoint template featuring creative slides full of images and icons. It includes 60 different slides in Full HD resolution. All of the graphics and shapes in the template are also editable as well.

Neue Free Minimal PowerPoint Template

Neue Free Minimal PowerPoint Template

Neue is a free PowerPoint template with a minimalist design. This makes it a perfect choice for crafting creative and business presentations. The free versions of the template include multiple slides you can use with your personal projects.

TAHU – Free PowerPoint Presentation Template

TAHU - FREE PowerPoint Presentation Template

This free PowerPoint template comes with a set of creative slides you can use to design professional and business presentations. It includes many different types of slides for crafting effective slideshows, including slides for showcasing services, timelines, portfolio, and more.

Clean – Free PowerPoint Presentation Template

Clean - Free PowerPoint Presentation Template

Just as the name suggests, this free PowerPoint template features a minimal and clean design with lots of white space. It’s perfect for making professional slideshows with a content-focused design. The template is easily editable as well.

Duotone – Modern Free PowerPoint Template

Duotone - Modern Free PowerPoint Template

Duotone is a modern and colorful PowerPoint template that features a set of attractive slides with a creative duotone color effect. This template is most suitable for making presentations for creative brands and professionals. It’s available in both PowerPoint and Keynote versions and includes 18 unique slides.

London – Minimal  Free PowerPoint Template

London - Minimal Free PowerPoint Template

London is an elegant and a minimalist free PowerPoint template that comes with 21 unique slides with easy to customize drag and drop image placeholders. You can use this template to make all kinds of business and creative presentations.

Modern Minimal Free Powerpoint Template

Modern Minimal Free Powerpoint Template

This free PowerPoint template includes a set of creative slides featuring colorful designs. You can easily customize all the slides in the template however you like to change fonts, colors, and images as well.

Style – PowerPoint Presentation Template

Style - PowerPoint Presentation Template

Style is a PowerPoint presentation template designed for making lookbook-style slideshows for showcasing fashion designs. It’s perfect for promoting fashion catalogs. The template is free to use with your personal projects.

Free Creative PowerPoint Templates

Color Fun – Creative PowerPoint Template

Color FUN - Creative Powerpoint Template

Just as the name suggests, this PowerPoint template comes filled with colorful slides that will allow you to design unique and cheerful presentations to showcase your products, designs, and ideas. The template includes 50 unique slides with unlimited color options to customize the design however you want.

FUN Tastic – Free Creative PowerPoint Template

FUN Tastic - Free PowerPoint Template

This bright and colorful PowerPoint template offers a great set of slides for you to create more fun and entertaining presentation. It includes lots of creative slide designs in Full HD resolution. And you can customize them to your preference as well.

Free Neomorph PowerPoint Template

Free Neomorph PowerPoint Template

If you’re a fan of the Neomorphism design trend, this PowerPoint template is a perfect match for you. It features a bold slide design with shapes, buttons, and icons inspired by Neomorphic design. The free version of the template includes 10 unique slides.

GMTRY – Free Geometric Presentation Template

GMTRY - Free Geometric Presentation Template

This free PowerPoint template features one of the most creative slide designs on our list. The creative use of geometric shapes to design its colorful and attractive slides is simply perfect. The template is free to use with personal projects.

Curato – Free Creative Portfolio PowerPoint Template

Curato - Free Creative Portfolio PowerPoint Template

A bright and colorful PowerPoint template filled with shapes and styles. It’s perfect for showing off your best work in a portfolio. The template includes 37 unique slides with easily editable layouts.

Emotion Flashcard – Free Creative PowerPoint Template

Emotion Flashcard - Free Creative PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template comes with a set of creative and fun slides. It uses a lot of emoticons throughout the presentation to help you discuss emotions and mental health in a very creative way.

Kental – Free Minimal PowerPoint Template

Kental - Free Minimal PowerPoint Template

Kental is another free PowerPoint template that comes with colorful slide design. All of the slides in this template features pastel colors and comes with master slide layouts as well. This template is most suitable for creative fashion and design presentations.

Free Giant Doodles Newsletter PowerPoint Template

Free Giant Doodles Newsletter PowerPoint Template

Filled with lots of colorful doodles and illustrations, this PowerPoint template comes with 28 creative slide layouts you can customize however you like. It’s available in Google Slides version as well.

Free Creative PowerPoint Presentation Template

Free Creative PowerPoint Presentation Template

This is a free demo for a premium PowerPoint template. It includes several creative slides you can repurpose to create your own unique presentations.

Free Stylish Botanical PowerPoint Template

Free Stylish Botanical PowerPoint Template

The nature-inspired botanical theme gives this presentation template a very unique look and feel. It’s perfect for creating presentations for modern fashion and lifestyle brands.

Colors – Stylish Free PowerPoint Template

Colors - Stylish Free PowerPoint Template

Just as the name suggests, this free PowerPoint template comes with a beautiful set of slides filled with lots of colors. It’s ideal for making creative slideshows for event and entertainment related presentations as well as many others. And it includes 60 creative slides.

Happy Holi – Creative Free Powerpoint Template

Happy Holi - Creative Free Powerpoint Template

Happy Holi is a beautiful and creative PowerPoint template that comes with a colorful set of slides. Despite being named after a festival, the slides in the template feature a multipurpose design you can use to craft business, creative, and many other professional presentations.

Every – Clean & Simple PowerPoint Template

Every - Clean & Simple PowerPoint Template

Every is an elegant PowerPoint template featuring modern slide designs. It comes in both PowerPoint and Keynote file formats. Each template includes 15 unique slides in Full HD resolution.

Creative – Free Minimal PowerPoint Template

Creative - Free Minimal PowerPoint Template

This minimalist PowerPoint template comes with a creative design making it a great choice for presenting your personal portfolios and professional work. The template features drag and drop image placeholders and editable objects.

Mifridix – Free PowerPoint Presentation Template

Mifridix - Free Powerpoint Presentation Template

This free PowerPoint template comes with a beautiful and feminine slide design. Which makes it the perfect choice for crafting presentations for fashion brands, beauty products, and others.

BRONX – Free PowerPoint Presentation Template

BRONX - Free PowerPoint Presentation Template

Bronx is a creative PowerPoint presentation template that includes a modern and customizable design. You can use this template to create presentations with PowerPoint, Keynote, or even Google Slides.

Free Pitch Deck PowerPoint Templates

Free PowerPoint Pitch Deck Template

Free PowerPoint Pitch Deck Template

You can use this PowerPoint template for making creative pitch deck slideshows. It includes colorful slides with cool illustrations and shapes to give each slide a unique look and feel. There are 19 unique slides and they come in Keynote format as well.

Sales Pitch Deck Free PowerPoint Template

Sales Pitch Deck Free PowerPoint Template

Create a bold and professional pitch deck for your agency using this free PowerPoint template. It has 20 unique slides with free fonts and icon packs. The template is especially suitable for real estate agencies.

Free PowerPoint Pitch Deck Infographics

Free PowerPoint Pitch Deck Infographics

You can use this free PowerPoint template to showcase stats and data related to your product launches. It includes 32 infographic slides with various styles of layouts. They are all fully customizable.

Free Corporate Pitch Deck PowerPoint Template

Free Corporate Pitch Deck PowerPoint Template

This pitch deck presentation is made with corporate brands and agencies in mind. It features a set of professional slides with easily editable layouts. There are 20 unique slides in this template.

Free Business Opportunity PowerPoint Pitch Deck

Free Business Opportunity PowerPoint Pitch Deck

You can create an attention-grabbing pitch deck to present your business ideas and startups with this free PowerPoint template. It features 12 unique slide layouts with beautiful gradient designs. And the template can be easily customized to your preference.

Pitch Werk Template

pitch werk-Startup Pitch Deck Template For PowerPoint

Pitch Werk is a creative PowerPoint template featuring a set of stylish slides made for modern startups. It includes more than 100 unique slides which are also available in 5 different premade color schemes. The template also comes with lots of useful elements such as pricing tables, device mockups, maps, and much more.

Sneakers Shop – Free PowerPoint Pitch Deck Template

Sneakers Shop - PowerPoint Pitch Deck Template

If you’re working on a pitch deck for a sneaker startup or even an eCommerce store for a fashion product, this template is perfect for creating a winning presentation. It includes 32 unique slides.

Comersa Free Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Comersa Free Pitch Deck Presentation Template

Comersa PowerPoint template comes with a designed made specifically for crafting slideshows for business-related presentations. The template is available in PowerPoint, Keynote, and Google Slides versions as well.

Pitch Deck – Free PowerPoint Presentation Template

Pitch Deck - Free PowerPoint Presentation Template

This is the perfect free PowerPoint presentation template you can use to create pitch decks for startups, creatives, and freelancers. The template includes 22 unique slides and it’s available both with and without slide animations.

Free Conference Pitch Deck Powerpoint Template

Free Conference Pitch Deck Powerpoint Template

This free PowerPoint template is perfect for making a pitch deck for speeches and presentations you give at events and conferences. The template features a set of easily editable slide layouts with modern designs.

Free Medical PowerPoint Templates

Free Mental Health Workshop PowerPoint Template

Free Mental Health in the Workplace PowerPoint Template

You can create an effective presentation to promote good mental health in the workplace with this free template. It includes 22 unique slide layouts you can use to showcase the importance of maintaining good mental health and suggest your ideas in meetings.

Modern Medical PowerPoint Template

Modern Medical Powerpoint Template

This PowerPoint template comes with 30 unique slides featuring clean and modern designs. It also lets you choose from 5 different premade color schemes for designing various styles of slideshows. It’s perfect for making presentations for all kinds of businesses and events.

World After Corona Virus – Free PowerPoint Template

World After Corona Virus - Free PowerPoint Template

If you’re working on a presentation to talk about the recent global pandemic, this template will help you design a more compelling slideshow. It includes 31 unique slide layouts with editable graphics and icons.

Free Mental Health Thesis Presentation Template

Free Mental Health Thesis Presentation Template

This is the perfect presentation template you can use to talk about mental health topics. It features 23 unique slides with easily editable designs. The template is also available in Google Slides version.

Free Medical Presentation Template

Free Medical Presentation Template

This is a multipurpose PowerPoint template you can use to create different types of presentations related to medicine and medical facilities. The template includes editable graphics and master slide layouts as well.

Medical – Free PowerPoint Template

Medical - Free Powerpoint Template

If you’re working on a presentation for a medical related business or brand, this free PowerPoint presentation template will come in handy. The template includes 30 unique slides filled with plenty of image placeholders and graphics.

Clinical Case – Free Medical PowerPoint Template

Clinical Case - Free Medical PowerPoint Template

This free and creative PowerPoint template comes in both PowerPoint and Google Slides versions. It includes 24 beautiful slide designs filled with colorful illustrations and content formatting.

Healthcare Center – Free Medical PowerPoint Template

Healthcare Center - Free Medical PowerPoint Template

Healthcare Center is a professional and free PowerPoint template designed for medical centers and healthcare businesses. The template includes 23 unique slide design you can use to create an effective presentation.

Free Teachers & Education PowerPoint Templates

Free Social Studies for Elementary PowerPoint Template

Free Social Studies for Elementary PowerPoint Template

This educational PowerPoint template is designed for making presentations for educating social studies subjects. The template includes 35 different slides with colorful designs that will easily attract the attention of your students.

Free Elementary School PowerPoint Template

Free Elementary School PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template features the perfect design for making fun educational presentations for kids. It’s designed for showcasing different types of stones and it comes with lots of colorful illustrations. There are 35 different slides in this template.

Free Chinese Language Day PowerPoint Template

Free Chinese Language Day PowerPoint Template

Use this free PowerPoint template to teach the Chinese languages to kids. It features a beautiful slide design filled with adorable illustrations and colorful shapes. There are 35 unique slides included in the template with fully editable layouts.

School Bundle – Free Education PowerPoint Template

School Bundle - Free Education PowerPoint Template

If you’re looking for a creative PowerPoint template to grab the attention of your students during presentations, this free template is for you. It features a creative design across 15 different useful slide layouts.

Daniel’s Thesis – Free Education PowerPoint Template

Daniel's Thesis - Free Education PowerPoint Template

This colorful and creative PowerPoint template is perfect for creating attractive presentations to showcase your thesis, assignments, projects, and much more. The template features 24 unique slides filled with colorful graphics, shapes, and elements.

Academy at the City – Free Education PowerPoint Template

Academy at the City - Free Education PowerPoint Template

A professional PowerPoint template for promoting your school, academy, and institutions. While the template is designed with education establishments in mind, you can use it to create business presentations as well. The template includes 24 unique slides.

Education – Simple PowerPoint template

Education - Simple Powerpoint template

This is a professional PowerPoint template that includes 30 unique slide designs. Each slide is also available in 5 different color schemes. It also features editable vector graphics, image placeholders, and icons for crafting entertaining presentations more easily.

Math Lesson – Free PowerPoint Presentation Template

Math Lesson - Free PowerPoint Presentation Template

This free and creative PowerPoint template is designed for teachers for making their lessons look more engaging and fun for students. The template comes packed with creative illustrations and graphics as well.

E-Learning – Free Teachers PowerPoint Template

E-Learning - Free Teachers PowerPoint Template

Another free PowerPoint template that’s most suitable for making presentations to promote your online learning programs and courses. The template comes with 17 unique slide layouts that you can easily customize to your preference.

Master’s Thesis – Free Education PowerPoint Template

Master's Thesis - Free Education PowerPoint Template

This free PowerPoint template comes with 12 unique and editable slides you can use to effectively showcase and present your thesis projects to an audience. The template is also available in Google Slides version as well.

Free Interactive Education PPT for Teachers

Free Interactive Education PPT for Teachers

This PowerPoint template is designed with teachers in mind. It features 44 different slides you can use to create various educational presentations for classes. The slides are fully customizable and include graphs, charts, and infographics as well.

Online Notebook – Free Education PowerPoint Template

Online Notebook - Free PowerPoint Template

A free PowerPoint template you can use to create a notebook-style presentation. Both teachers and students can use this template to create notes for classes and subjects. There are 30 slide layouts in this template.

Free English Language Grammar Rules PPT

Free English Language Grammar Rules PPT

Grammar can be a boring subject to talk about. But with this colorful PowerPoint template, you can present your lessons in a more entertaining way. It includes 41 unique slides filled with adorable illustrations.

Colorful Light Bulbs Free Education PowerPoint Template

Colorful Light Bulbs Free Education PowerPoint Template

This colorful PowerPoint template has lightbulbs all over the slides. You can use it to create presentations to teach various subjects and topics. There are 39 slides in this template. And it’s available in the Google Slides version as well.

Free Church PowerPoint Templates

Free Christian Church PowerPoint Template

Free Christian Church PowerPoint Template

A beautiful presentation template made with churches in mind. It has 20 unique slide layouts with colorful and minimal designs. The template is ideal for showcasing your Christian Church projects.

Free Church Conference Powerpoint Template

Free Church Conference Powerpoint Template

A modern and elegant PowerPoint template designed specifically for making presentations for church events and conferences. The template comes with 23 slide layouts with easily editable designs and image placeholders.

Religion Lesson – Free PowerPoint Presentation

Religion Lesson - Free PowerPoint Presentation

A free PowerPoint template designed for educating students and audiences on various religious topics. It can also be used to deliver religious speeches and presentations as well. It includes 17 unique slides. Even though the template features slide designs with multiple religions, you can easily replace the images of your choice as well.

Free Infographic PowerPoint Templates

8 Free Charts PowerPoint Templates

8 Free Charts PowerPoint Templates

This template includes 8 customizable charts infographics for you to use in your presentations. The template includes pie charts, bar charts, and infographics too. It’s also available in Excel format.

12 Free Infographics Slides for PowerPoint

12 Free Infographics Slides for PowerPoint

There are 12 different infographic slides to choose from in this PowerPoint template. They are ideal for both business and research presentations. The template is free to use.

Free Internal Motivation Infographics PowerPoint Template

Free Internal Motivation Infographics PowerPoint Template

This free PowerPoint template includes 31 unique slide designs with infographics. They are designed for visualizing stats and information for motivating your teams and employees.

The Power of Feminism Infographics PowerPoint Template

The Power of Feminism Infographics PowerPoint Template

You can use this free PowerPoint template to create attractive infographic slides to promote the power of feminism. It includes more than 30 unique slide designs. And you can customize them in Google Slides as well.

PPTx Infographics

PPTx Infographics

This Powerpoint presentation template also includes 50 unique infographic slides. The slides are also available in light and dark themes as well as unlimited color options for customizing the shapes, text, and icons of the slides.

Epsilon – Free Business PowerPoint Template

Epsilon - Free Business PowerPoint Template

Epsilon is a free PowerPoint template made for small businesses. You can use it to create powerful business presentations using its slides full of charts and graphs. The template can be easily customized with multiple color options and icons.

Free Business Infographics PowerPoint Template

Animated Business Infographics PowerPoint Template

This free PowerPoint template comes with lots of editable infographics you can use to visualize your data. The template includes 8 unique slide designs that are easily customizable. It’s also available in Google Slides version as well.

Demand for Headless Increases, Finds the Latest Report by WP Engine

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AUSTIN, Texas—SEPT. 10, 2024—WP Engine, a global web enablement company providing premium products and solutions for websites built on WordPress, today published The State of Headless 2024, a research report highlighting the widespread adoption of headless web architecture among industry leaders. The international survey found that 73% of respondents are now using headless, and nearly

The post Demand for Headless Increases, Finds the Latest Report by WP Engine appeared first on WP Engine.

40+ Best Training & eLearning PowerPoint Templates (Education PPTs)

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An educated workforce is a happier workforce. That’s why it makes sense to invest in corporate training and eLearning. It’ll increase the skills, creativity and innovation of your workforce and help you keep more employees, too.

One key tool in delivering training is the presentation. Get your presentation right, and you can present important information and engage your audience.

To build presentations fast, you can use premium corporate training PowerPoint templates. You’ll find lots of free and premium training PowerPoint templates and other elearning templates across the web. In this article, we’ll share some of the best training PowerPoint templates to help you make appealing presentations.

Business Training PowerPoint Infographics

Business Training PowerPoint Infographics

This is a useful PowerPoint template for facilitating business training sessions. With over 20 unique, fully customizable infographic slides, it offers a modern, user-friendly approach to crafting informative presentations to accompany your business training and seminars.

Bentala – Employee Training PowerPoint Template

Bentala - Employee Training PowerPoint Template

Another modern PowerPoint template perfect for business training slides. With a modern, sleek design and user-friendly interface, it’s easy for anyone to produce impressive, professional-looking presentations. It includes 20 editable slides, drag-and-drop image functionality, and customizable color schemes.

Team Building Training PowerPoint Template

Team Building Training PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint template is also suitable for training sessions, which can enhance your presentations with its sleek, modern design. Its features include 10 master slides, editable vector graphics, and a convenient drag-and-drop feature for image placement.

Online Course PowerPoint Template

Online Course PowerPoint Template

This is a thoughtfully crafted PowerPoint template for educators and online course creators. Designed for clarity and visual appeal, this comprehensive template can brilliantly outline course content, learning objectives, instructor qualifications, and enrolment details.

Team Building & Training Powerpoint Template

Team Building & Training Powerpoint Template

This is a sleek, modern PowerPoint template ideal for professional business presentations. Whether you’re pitching a startup, proposing a project, or conducting leadership training, this template is versatile, fitted with 25 editable slides and drag-drop image placeholders.

Modern Online Course Powerpoint Template

Modern Online Course Powerpoint Template

A multipurpose business presentation template, perfect for webinars, e-courses, online seminars, and much more. With its clean and professional design complemented by 36 editable slides, resizable graphics, and drag-and-drop image placeholders, it’s suitable for a variety of uses.

Lumiere – Education Course Presentation Template

Lumiere - Education Course Presentation Template

The Lumiere is a versatile PowerPoint template for various purposes such as education, coursework, technology, corporate pitches, digital marketing, start-up projects, and personal portfolios. The template’s features include 30 unique slides, editable graphics, free web fonts, and more.

e-Learning College Powerpoint Template

e-Learning College Powerpoint Template

This is a top-tier, engaging PowerPoint template tailored for educators and academic administrators. It’s ideal for presenting online learning programs at academic conferences, introducing online courses, or hosting educational workshops. This template’s professional design, high-quality graphics, and easy customization make it a great choice for anyone wishing to highlight the features and benefits of eLearning.

Human Resource Training PowerPoint Template

Human Resource Training PowerPoint Template

Take your business presentations to the next level with this PowerPoint template. Boasting 30+ unique slides in a widescreen 16:9 format, this template is versatile for various projects. With all graphics being resizable and editable, as well as an easy drag-and-drop picture placeholder, you have control over your presentation’s look.

Call Center Training PowerPoint Template

Call Center Training PowerPoint Template

This creative PowerPoint template is a uniquely designed graphic pack to elevate your presentation experience. It comes with editable charts and elements, preset color schemes, and diverse slide variations. Convenient and user-friendly, this template is ideal for illustrating every stage of your business development journey.

Employee Training Plan PowerPoint Template

Employee Training Plan PowerPoint Template

An impressive and user-friendly PowerPoint template designed to heighten business training presentations. With its unique, editable slides and preset color scheme, the template facilitates the creation of comprehensive presentations for every stage of business development.

Online Course Education Presentation

Online Course Education Presentation

This is a customizable PowerPoint template perfect for educational needs. It features a 16:9 widescreen ratio, a user-friendly master slide layout, and a complimentary font. The Eduwave template style is flexible and well-suited for both corporate and personal presentations.

Lovanda – Language Course PowerPoint Template

Lovanda - Language Course PowerPoint Template

An elegant and comprehensive PowerPoint template that helps transform your creative visions into polished realities with ease. This versatile template, perfect for numerous creative enterprises, allows you to brilliantly communicate your ideas with its 10 customizable slides, retina and full HD resolution, resizable vector elements, and more.

Business Training PowerPoint Presentation

Business Training PowerPoint Presentation

Use this PowerPoint template to streamline the creation of your slideshows, whether it’s for business training sessions or seminars. It comes equipped with editable color schemes, image placeholders, and free font, helping to elevate your content without effort.

Leadership Training PowerPoint Template

Leadership Training PowerPoint Template

This is a modern, professional, and minimalist PowerPoint template perfect for business coaches, motivational speakers, and training companies. It comes with 25 total slides, features resizable and editable graphics, and even includes drag-and-drop image placeholders.

Modern Leadership Training Presentation Template

Modern Leadership Training Presentation Template

A cutting-edge PowerPoint template designed for leadership training and business workshops. It includes 30 unique, editable slides with a light background suitable for various seminars, training events, and more.

MasterClass Training PowerPoint Template

MasterClass Training PowerPoint Template

A dynamic PowerPoint template for business training presentations. With over 30 unique, editable slides in a 16:9 widescreen format, this template allows for aesthetic coherence through its predetermined color scheme and font theme. It provides a comprehensive approach to project storytelling, catering to every phase of your business growth.

Leadership Training PowerPoint Presentation

Leadership Training PowerPoint Presentation

With a wide array of customizable, eye-catching slide designs, this PowerPoint template effortlessly meets diverse presentation needs. Its notable features include editable graphics, utilization of free web fonts, master slides-based setup, and a user-friendly drag-and-drop functionality.

Business Training PowerPoint Template

Business Training PowerPoint Template

This is a versatile PowerPoint template designed for creating professional and engaging business training presentations. It features a simple and modern theme with editable color scheme, image placeholders, and uses a free font.

Training Interview Presentation for PowerPoint

Training Interview Presentation for PowerPoint

This is the perfect PowerPoint template for constructing impressive training presentations effortlessly. Suitable for businesses, agencies, and training companies, this template will elevate your training programs in a professional way.

Jobtrain Training PowerPoint Template

training powerpoint template

Jobtrain PowerPoint template combines various design aspects and usability to make your company profile presentation more engaging. Inside the pack, you’ll find a smorgasbord of infographics, vectors, charts, and layouts that you can use inside your presentation.

Learnic – Training PowerPoint Template

training powerpoint template

This is a well-designed and modern training presentation template. It’s great for teaching and training. The team training template PPT comes with over 100 slides you can work with. You can also use the included maps, charts, and other graphics.

Ronald – Training PowerPoint Template

training powerpoint template

Roland is a professional, clean, modern, and easy-to-use presentation template. It can be used for various purposes. Roland offers you amazing convenience in terms of replacing images and fonts. Make your clients feel satisfied with this presentation template.

Time Management Training PowerPoint Template

training powerpoint template

This is one of the best PowerPoint templates for training, thanks to its crisp, minimalist design. The time management training template set includes 12 PowerPoint files and more than 60 slides. Add the finishing touches to your presentation with built-in icons and handmade infographics.

Yogadu – Training PowerPoint Template

training powerpoint template

Yogadu is an easy-to-edit set of training PowerPoint templates via drag and drop. The training template set includes 80 different slides and 10 color schemes. There are many different business templates and charts with editable shapes.

Arthur – Training PowerPoint Template

training powerpoint template

This set of corporate PowerPoint templates includes more than 60 unique training slides. There are editable charts and diagrams, making it easy to include data in your business training. This training PPT is attractive, well-designed and well-supported.

Professional Training PowerPoint Template

training powerpoint template

This is a responsive PowerPoint training template with a clean, professional design. The template set has more than 50 slides and will match your branding with unlimited colors. It also includes a variety of infographic elements such as charts and timelines, as well as editable vector icons.

Clean Training PowerPoint Template

training powerpoint template

This PowerPoint training template is a fun contemporary choice for your next presentation. This download comes with 40 unique training slides and layouts. These slides are also easy to edit and customize. Take advantage of the device mockups to help illustrate your points.

eLearning PowerPoint Template

training powerpoint template

Here’s a cool training presentation focused on education. It comes with unique slide layouts, image placeholders, and it’s based on master slides. It has plenty of white space, making it easy for your audience to follow your points. This template is perfect for your next training presentation.

Online Education PowerPoint Template

training powerpoint template

Design your presentation template quickly with this ready-made E-Learning PowerPoint Template. It has many slide layouts to choose from with stock photos and techy graphic design elements. What is the best part? You can redesign this presentation template quickly. You just have to download it, edit the content, and wow our audiences.

Versatile Training PowerPoint Template

training powerpoint template

This PowerPoint training template set is designed for online courses. It’s got an eye-catching design and includes animations. There are 51 training slides in the set. It’s easy to change colors to match your chosen color scheme with a single click. Free eLearning templates for PowerPoint usually don’t have these features.

Webinar & Ecourse PowerPoint Template

training powerpoint template

This template for Microsoft PowerPoint is a modern and sleek presentation that will give a boost to your business meetings and lectures. It contains 46 beautifully designed slides that can be easily edited and adjusted to suit all of your professional and business needs.

Online Training PowerPoint Template

training powerpoint template

This simple, elegant eLearning PowerPoint template has a clean design to suit any kind of training. It includes 50 slides that are designed and easy to edit with drag and drop. The training template PPT includes vector icons.

Online Class PowerPoint Template

training powerpoint template

This training PowerPoint presentation template will help you deliver in an online classroom. The slide deck’s layout is minimal and stylish. University also includes more than 42 unique training slides. Features like image placeholders and master slides make this an easy template to customize. It’s hard to find a training PPT template free download that can say that.

Online Training Course PowerPoint Template

training powerpoint template

Now you don’t need to spend time preparing complicated slides. Just download this presentation and replace text and images in a few clicks. It provides you with more time preparing your speech.

Elearn – Training PowerPoint Template

training powerpoint template

This training PowerPoint template comes with 16 slides. It also includes infographic elements. Use it for business training or eLearning.

iCourse – Training PowerPoint Template

training powerpoint template

This training and development PPT template is great for many subjects. If your training relates to sketching or designing, the slide templates are already set up.

Hi- Learning – Training PowerPoint Template

training powerpoint template

If you need to talk timelines, this training presentation template has the graphics you need already built in. All you’ve got to do is edit the included example, and you’re good to go.

Professional Training PowerPoint Template

training powerpoint template

This is another free Microsoft Office template featuring images of education. It’s simple to edit fonts and colors to make the training template PPT your own.

Laqu – Training PowerPoint Template

training powerpoint template

Laqu is a simple training PowerPoint template with a dark background. The dark background is suitable for many purposes, including corporate training. This technical training PPT includes 25 editable slides.

Marketing Budget Approval: How to Get Yours Greenlit, According to Marketing Experts & Data

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Securing approval for a marketing budget is often tough, especially in times of economic uncertainty.

Click here to download 8 free marketing budget templates.

I haven’t been there myself, but my learnings from C-level marketers show the many complexities around marketing budgets.

Budget slicing is a common occurrence. Entire initiatives are sometimes shelved.

But there are also those glorious moments when your strategic budget proposal gets the green light.

In this post I’ll share what I learned about marketing budget approval from experts in the field, industry data, and more.

In this article:

Expert Marketers Featured in this Post

To help you navigate the budget approval process, I talked to three marketers who’ve been in the trenches for 7+ years:

Their stories not only shed light on what it takes to secure a budget, but also offer practical tips you can use right away.

headshots and titles of experts later quoted on marketing budget approval

When I spoke to Sabina Brdnik, I learned the Tretton37 team follows a 4-step budget approval process, which you can adopt.

  1.  Forecasting
  2.  Budget proposal writing
  3.  Review and revision
  4.  Execution and reporting

Forecasting

Consider this the research, planning, and brainstorming phase. It includes evaluating past performance, analyzing market trends, establishing marketing goals, building your marketing strategy, and estimating associated costs.

Brdnik believes forecasting is the most important step of the budget approval process, and for good reason. If your forecasts aren’t thorough, you’ll struggle to build a compelling case for your budget.

Budget Proposal Writing

Outline the outcome of your forecast in a concise budget proposal. An excellent proposal includes your marketing goals, initiatives, channels, proposed expenses, and, when possible, expected ROI.

For Brdnik’s team, they first “present a detailed plan showing how much money will be invested in individual parts of [the] marketing plan (social media, SEO, influencers, etc).”

Pro tip: Focus your proposal on key points to ensure executives clearly understand the situation. Be concise, as they are likely reviewing proposals from multiple departments.

Review and Revision

Present your budget proposal to the company’s senior management for review and sign-off. Sometimes, they may instantly approve the budget and allocate the required funds. Other times, you may need to provide additional information or make adjustments.

Execution and Reporting

Brdnik says, “During the year, we implement the approved plan and track the actual spent budget versus the forecasted budget.”

Brdnik recommends setting aside 10% of your annual budget as a contingency fund for unexpected circumstances or opportunities, such as a viral trend that could help enhance brand visibility or testing out the new shiny AI tool that will help the team create better and faster articles.

As Johnny Hughes said, “New tools emerge each month, along with new opportunities and risks. We have to be extremely agile and conduct weekly efficacy reports to inform spending.”

Evaluating your budget’s effectiveness and documenting lessons learned helps future budget cycles. “HubSpot — and its endless integrations and dashboards — is our MVP tool that supports this effort,” Hughes adds.

Pro tip: To track your budget, consider using free marketing budget templates. They help you track marketing spend across various channels like content, paid advertising, PR.

Benefits of a Budget Approval Workflow

Below are three primary benefits of a budget approval workflow.

1. Faster Approval Times

Without a budget approval workflow, securing your budget can feel like driving through thick fog. The journey is slow and uncertain. A standardized workflow clears the fog, clarifies the next steps, and lets you move faster.

You can further increase speed by automating your workflow. Business process management software like Jira and Monday.com can help you eliminate hours of manual budgeting activities. For instance, instead of exchanging emails endlessly, an automated workflow can notify assignees to act.

2. Compels You to Set Robust Marketing Goals

Data from CoSchedule's 2022 Trend Report reveals marketers who set goals are 377% more successful than their peers.

Yet, 30% of marketers do not set specific goals. I have seen firsthand how this results in wasteful spending — and worse, makes it difficult to measure success.

But with a marketing strategy required in your budget approval process, setting clear marketing goals becomes a must, leading to better resource management.

3. Democratizes Decision-Making

Top leaders need to delegate decision-making so they can focus on other high-level activities. A budget approval process lets them establish boundaries and set clear guidelines for decision-making. Once the budget is approved, managers can exercise autonomy within established limits.

Marketing Budget Approval

Why Marketing Budgets Are So Hard to Get Approved

When I spoke to Pamela Bump, she told me, “It’s often hard to tie marketing efforts and KPIs (like traffic or reach) to direct ROI (like sales or renewals).” That’s why leadership is sometimes reluctant to allocate funds to marketing.

Marketing attribution helps address this challenge by allowing marketers to analyze the buyer's journey, identify effective touchpoints, and measure the impact of each effort.

However, recent events suggest attribution is dying and becoming increasingly difficult. Apple‘s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework and new privacy laws in New York, California, Canada, and the EU have significantly limited marketers’ ability to track buyers.

Additionally, about one-third of internet users use ad blockers which block tracking scripts.

These developments complicate efforts to measure marketing effectiveness and convince higher-ups that marketing investments will pay off.

How to Get Your Marketing Budget Approved

I asked our marketing experts to share tips to help others secure their marketing budget. Here’s what they said.

Align Marketing Goals with Company Goals

“The key to any successful budget request is knowing what KPIs your upper leaders need to drive,” says Bump. “Spoiler: They’ll likely tie it to company revenue,” Bump adds.

Your budget proposal should show you understand your leadership’s priorities and want to achieve them. Without this, you don’t have a leg to stand on.

Show Path to ROI

Determining marketing ROI can be tricky. Still, it’s important to justify your budget and prove it’s an investment, not a black hole sucking up the company’s profit.

As Bump shared, once you know the KPIs that resonate with your executives, you can show how your investment could drive ROI directly or support those KPIs.

For example, if you pitch for more blog writers, emphasize how the content will generate leads that drive visitors further into the sales pipeline, not just increase traffic or clicks.

Hughes’s team still relies heavily on marketing attribution data to track ROI.

First, Hughes ensures alignment on the key channels driving business growth. He also ensures the attribution data is clean for accurate ROI reporting. They then track returns on a week-over-week basis.

This approach helps Hughes avoid pushback from stakeholders.

Use Data to Justify Your Budget

“Ground your request and any estimates you make in data-backed evidence,” says Bump.

Without data, all you have is an opinion. And an opinion alone might be unconvincing.

Hughes considers data a “fortress of numbers to defend against budget cuts and welcome new investments” and says, “We rely heavily on ROI metrics from previous campaigns, market trend analysis, and competitive benchmarking.”

Similarly, Brdnik says that competitive benchmarking is vital when pitching new ideas without past firsthand data.

“I had an interesting experience getting approval for a new TikTok campaign. We are not active on the platform. So, to strengthen our pitch, we used competitor analysis showing similar brands saw up to a 30% increase in engagement,” Brdnik explains.

Request a Small Budget for New Ideas.

Justifying the budget for similar/past campaigns is pretty straightforward. For instance, if a Cost Per Purchase (CPP) campaign generated $100K in revenue for a $20K spend, it easily justifies a similar budget for future initiatives.

However, as Brdnik shared, “The problem arises when we have to justify more innovative/new ideas and strategies based on no previous data.”

In such situations, be more rigorous and creative in vetting opportunities. Then, run small tests to validate your hypothesis. If successful, securing additional investment becomes easier.

Brdnik said she allocates up to “20% of the annual budget for new/innovative projects.” Data from these tests then guide the next steps.

To improve their chances of success, Brdnik sticks to best practices when testing new ideas, and Hughes recommends implementing a flexible budget model and making real-time adjustments based on performance metrics.

Get Early Support

There's a lot of lead-up work involved in getting marketing budget buy-in. If you’re in a big company, you likely can’t walk up to a busy CMO and ask for $1 million without other leaders supporting you.

So, before investing time in research or proposal writing, casually discuss your idea with your manager.

As Bump shared, “Your manager is human and has also requested, secured, and faced rejections of budgets before. Plus, your manager is likely the most KPI-obsessed person on your team to guide you in the right direction.

So they’ll know more about how to think and talk to the executives above them.

They’ll also know what motivates those executives and the biggest KPIs they desperately want to drive.”

With this early support and guidance, you set your proposal up for success or refine the idea if needed. This saves time on budget revisions or unnecessary proof-of-concept tests.

Here are some messages that Bump shared with me to start conversations with managers.

Example 1:

Hi [Manager],

I [noticed/read/observed] that [evidence] leads to [KPI], and I’d like to pitch an idea/project to test that I think could help us explore/scale this further.

I would love to get your thoughts and see if there’s any budget available for a test like this before I start writing a deeper proposal for you in our next one-on-one.

Example 2:

Hi [Manager],

I would love to pitch a [lean budget or project] to test how [tactic] leads to social media reach. However, I know reach doesn’t directly tie to the KPIs our department ladders up to.

I’d love to get your guidance on how we could connect these KPIs or how we’ve tied reach to revenue in the past before pitching potential tactics around it.

Be Prepared for Pushback and Be Open to Compromise

“It’s important to have concrete arguments about why something is necessary when stakeholders push back,” Brdnik says. Your executives may not have the details you do, so be ready to provide additional information and data to address their objections.

Remember, marketing is just one department, and there are others competing for a share of the company’s fixed budget. So, be open to compromise wherever it is possible.

“If stakeholders think $50K of the budget is excessive for influencer marketing, propose a pilot program for 50% of it and test (and measure) its effectiveness,” Brdnik advises.

The point is to put yourself in the shoes of your higher-ups. Think like a business owner aiming to generate significant returns from marketing spend. This will allow you to be more rigorous in your analysis.

Continue to Earn Trust

If you lock down the budget, spend it responsibly and report on the results, as Bump suggests.

This keeps you accountable for spending your budget based on impact. It’ll also earn you the trust and support of executives who can decrease or increase the budget in future quarters.

Brdnik regularly updates stakeholders, mostly via monthly email reports. Her team also creates quarterly reports that show all relevant KPIs (lead generation, conversion rates, etc.) to illustrate marketing's contribution to overall revenue.

Getting Your Budget Proposal Greenlit

Marketing budgets are among the first to be scrutinized in many companies. I’ve seen several marketers vent about this on LinkedIn, especially when they experience budget cuts.

Sometimes, this scrutiny arises when executives view marketing as less essential than other departments. However, it’s also prevalent because leadership wants efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and solid ROI.

And that’s okay! After all, it’s their job to get value for every dollar spent.

Understanding this lets you embrace the challenge. Lean into it. Anticipate objections from leadership and become more strategic.

Plan thoroughly and prioritize the most impactful initiatives. These ultimately make you more effective in driving results and securing future investments.

Bump, for example, started with $0 per year but now manages an increasing budget, a team of four direct reports, and a part-time contractor.

By applying the tips in this post, you’ll not only secure the funding you need but also strengthen your ability to drive impactful marketing initiatives.

AI in Content Marketing: How Creators and Marketers are Using It in 2024 [Data]

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The wild ride of AI is still on, and industries across the globe are riding it for growth. But concerns are also mounting.

Download Now: The Annual State of Artificial Intelligence in 2024 [Free Report]

For one, professionals continue to question AI’s impact on their work. This is especially true for many marketers and content creators, such as myself, who are keen to understand the role of AI in content marketing.

With the global revenue for AI in marketing pegged at over $107.5 billion by 2028, there is no doubt that AI will soon (and may already) be an integral part of the digital marketing landscape.

So, for the creator or marketer who wishes to stay ahead of the curve, knowing how to leverage this technology is a no-brainer.

Using the real experiences of marketing professionals and data from our recent State of AI for Marketers survey, I will answer your questions about how creators and marketers are using AI in 2024 and what this means for their output and productivity.

Table of Contents

What is AI in content marketing?

While there’s no standard definition of “AI in content marketing,” I will attempt to build one based on the understanding of the two concepts.

Corey Wainwright describes content marketing as a “marketing program that centers on creating, publishing, and distributing content for your target audience — usually online — the goal of which is to attract new customers.”

Google defines AI as “a set of technologies that enable computers to perform a variety of functions, including the ability to see, understand and translate spoken and written language, analyze data, make recommendations, and more.”

Combining these two concepts into one definition for AI in content marketing would look like this:

AI in content marketing involves using technologies that analyze data, understand language, and make recommendations to create, publish, and distribute content designed to engage an online audience.

Benefits of Using AI in Content Marketing

I’ve gathered some of the most popular applications of AI in content marketing, and their benefits are below.

Benefits of Using AI in Content Marketing

1. Content Creation

In our 2024 State of AI report, 43% of marketers place content creation as the most popular use case of AI in content marketing.

Content can take many forms — written, visual, video, and audio — and marketers are using generative AI to bring these to life at scale.

“As a PR professional working with high-growth SaaS startups and VC firms, AI enables us to craft more personalized stories that resonate deeply with their audiences, drive engagement, and ultimately, build stronger, more credible brands,” Sim Aulakh, founder of PR firm EstablishCred, says.

Benefits: In using generative AI to do anything from writing marketing copy to turning text into video, marketers can save time and increase productivity in the content creation process.

2. Research

Content marketers need to know enough about customers, competitors, and their industry to make confident decisions about the entire pipeline of content production.

AI tools can be quite useful in finding this information and analyzing volumes of data to identify trends, keywords, and relevant information, all in record time.

For example, HubSpot’s new AI Search Grader — a first-of-its-kind, free app that quickly analyzes your brand based on what your prospects and customers are seeing across AI search engines — gives you actionable recommendations on how to improve. Imagine the wonders this would do for any marketing team.

Benefits: Besides saving time and effort, using AI for content marketing research guarantees that decisions are made more quickly and confidently than manual research. Advanced AI models can even extract up-to-date information for more accurate content planning.

3. Brainstorming Content Ideas

I know from personal experience that to be a creative professional is to, among other things, accept the fact that good ideas may elude you once in a while.

With AI, I’ve found this creative block does not need to linger for long as there are tools that will generate or suggest creative concepts that you could tweak to your liking. As a content writer, I personally love having AI as a brainstorming partner when I get stuck.

For Aulakh, whose company undertakes several creative projects, leveraging AI for content brainstorming has been pivotal to their recent growth.

“While human creativity cannot be replaced by AI, it can be enhanced by AI. As an example, AI tools like Gemini and ChatGPT have helped us during brainstorming and ideation processes for content projects. Now, we’re able to deliver on projects at a fraction of the time it used to take us,” he says

Benefits: Brainstorming with AI will not only kickstart your creative engines but also speed up the process. Nearly 82% of the marketers surveyed say that using AI for brainstorming content ideas has saved them at least one hour of their precious time.

4. Data Analysis And Reporting

To learn how content distribution is faring in the market and impacting the business, content marketers need to rely on data analytics.

AI-powered analytics tools evaluate content performance and generate detailed reports on engagement metrics, ROI, and audience behavior.

This is, in fact, the third most popular use case of AI for marketers, according to our survey.

Benefits: Provides data-driven and actionable insights for optimizing content strategies and could also automate reporting. This improves the quality of decisions the marketer makes which, in turn, affects performance positively.

5. Self Upskilling

Ever been in the middle of work and reached a hurdle that only a quick search or YouTube video could help you cross? Well, 41% of the marketers we surveyed have and they say using AI helped them learn how to do those things.

Benefits: Besides the comfort of learning how to solve a problem and doing so in record time, this use case also ensures that marketers remain competitive and knowledgeable in the ever-evolving landscape of marketing.

How to Use AI in Content Marketing

Let’s now test some of the use cases mentioned above.

Without a good idea, it’s impossible to get the content on the road to either attract or engage audiences. So, we’ll start with brainstorming.

Assume I’m a content marketer at HubSpot who needs a cool video idea for distribution on our social media channels.

I found a cool AI brainstorming platform called Ideamap AI and asked it to brainstorm a video content idea for HubSpot, after providing context on what kind of brand HubSpot is. You’ll find that the map it produces is a bit much, considering that I already have trouble deciding what I want to do.

I chose the first idea and used the expand with AI option to generate more ideas or inspiration for marketing content.

ai in content marketing, ai idea mapping to help with brainstorming

One way AI can be used for ideas or inspiration is by creating a mood board with tools like Kive.ai.

Given the sheer range of options for expansion and transformation available, it is nearly impossible not to find something you would be willing to work on.

So, we are creating an animated explainer video showcasing how HubSpot connects marketing, sales, and customer service.

To get accurate information needed for this video, I will need to extract it from the website. This time, I will employ the research abilities of ChatGPT Plus, which can pull real-time information from the internet.

ai in content marketing, using chatgpt for research

While it does a good job of extracting the information (from six sites), the output is not exactly video material. So, the next step would be to ask it to create the video script, which would kickstart the content creation process.

ai in content marketing, chatgpt-generated video script

Since OpenAI’s Sora has still not been released to the public, I had to find available alternatives. It is worth mentioning here that 70% of the marketers we surveyed say they cannot wait to use the new tech.

However, Elai, an intuitive AI video creator, came in handy.

Creating the video with the script ChatGPT helped me create was indeed straightforward, although I must mention that there were not many video editing options to choose from.

Using an avatar, an American voice sample, and a blank background with HubSpot’s brand color were as far as I could go, especially as someone with limited video editing skills.

While I think this attempt was far from flawless, it was a solid effort. With some additional time to refine the details, I believe it has the potential to be even better.

AI in Content Marketing Examples

Generating Ideas & Inspiration: Mateo Toro

There’s an abundance of marketing professionals leveraging AI to boost their productivity and enhance their strategies.

For example, filmmaker and photographer Mateo Toro recently started using Kive.ai to design mood boards to develop treatments for his film projects.

A video treatment is a way to convey a project's concept or story. Many video treatments involve the use of images and visual media found online or in previous works.

“Video treatments take time. You have to scrub through the video, take screenshots, and edit for the video treatment,“ Toro explained. ”[Kive.ai] just makes it so much easier for me to find the video that has a style or tone I'm looking to emulate.”

With Kive.ai, creators can paste the link of a video into the system, and Kive.ai will extract frames from the video as screenshots to import into a board. Toro says the process can save him hours of time.

“In a video treatment, I could be going through 10, 15, 20 videos to reference,“ he said. ”You add that up, and it could easily be an hour of time just scrubbing through, screenshotting, and dragging content to a treatment.”

Writing Copy: Bethany Anderson

Then there’s Bethany Anderson, a public information officer for Milton, Florida, who says ChatGPT streamlines the writing aspect of her job.

“I love it because ChatGPT is a software that learns,” Anderson explains.

She says ChatGPT can mimic her writing style, so she’ll sometimes use the tool to write press releases, social media posts, and SEO-friendly blog content.

Anderson says the tool is handy because writing is a crucial part of her job, but it’s far from the only responsibility she has to tackle daily.

“I am behind the scenes planning events and getting them out to the public,“ she says. ”So, ChatGPT allows me to get the writing done in a very easy, seamless way so that I can get to the bones of my job — which is outreach.”

Anderson admits she was wary of ChatGPT at first but tested it out during a week that was jam-packed with deadlines.

“There was this one week a couple of months ago when I had so many deadlines, so many social media calendars due, so many blogs due, and so many bios due — I was drowning,” she recalls. “So I said, ‘I’m going to give it a try.’”

Days worth of writing assignments could be completed in just a few hours thanks to the assistance of AI, according to Anderson.

Her experience aligns with the findings of our survey — nearly 80% of marketers said generative AI has a positive ROI on their content writing tasks.

“We’re talking about days of your life that you get back,” she said. “And, to me, time is valuable. It's more valuable than money.”

Editing Drafts: Irina Nica

On the other hand, Irina Nica, HubSpot’s Senior Product Marketing Manager, uses HubSpot’s AI Content Writer to edit her drafts.

“It's like having a second pair of eyes that helps me go through my drafts, tidy them up, and get them out there faster. Don’t get me wrong … Writing is a huge part of my job and something that AI can’t take over, but it sure helps to speed up the nitty-gritty bits like editing.”

She also uses ChatSpot, HubSpot’s AI chatbot solution designed to help businesses perform marketing and sales operations, to supercharge her research.

“I like to use ChatSpot for getting quick recommendations for products, books, or any type of resource really. Say I‘m looking for the best product marketing book for SaaS companies; normally, I’d be knee-deep in Google searches, reading articles, and checking out recommendations on Goodreads,” Nica says.

“But with the right prompt, ChatSpot can get me there 10X faster. I still give its final recommendation a quick Google check, but it's a super handy shortcut.”

Will AI replace content creators?

A common concern surrounding the use of AI is whether the technology will replace human marketers and creators. Nima Olumi of Lightyear Strategies says it’s unlikely.

“We use AI to pull a lot of statistics, come up with interesting angles to pitch to companies, and work around certain angles that are marketing and media-friendly,” Olumi said. “I don't think it's a complete replacement for writers or thinkers.”

Writing and content creation are subjective fields, according to Olumi, and they still require people to do the necessary critical thinking to decide the kind of content that gets published.

Ultimately, Olumi predicts a future where AI will assist marketers and creatives in improving their output and producing content in a shorter time.

This makes sense, considering our survey found that 74% of marketers agree that AI tools can help them be more productive in their roles.

Olumi encourages professionals to embrace AI and use it to their advantage rather than shy away.

Specifically, he says creators should spend time learning and testing applications like Open.ai and ChatGPT to see their different capabilities.

“Spend hours asking question after question to see how far you can push the limits of the application to serve your needs,” he said. “You have to feed it context.”

Making the Most of AI

As the presence of AI in marketing continues to grow significantly, I suggest you take the time to discover how it can best serve your own team's needs.

Professionals and creatives like Olumi, Aulakh, Anderson, Nica, and Toro all found ways to use AI to help them improve the efficiency and quality of their content.

Instead of worrying whether the robots will take over, I recommend finding ways to work alongside AI, so you and your company can remain competitive in the market and essential to your clients.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in April 2023 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Why AI Isn’t Replacing Marketers (Or Search Engines) According to Jasper’s Former Head of Enterprise Marketing

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If you asked whether technology could replace marketing a few decades ago, most would look at you like you hit your head on concrete. Now, it’s no more a question but an issue that’s sparking industry-wide debate.

Download Now: The Annual State of Artificial Intelligence in 2024 [Free Report]

And we owe this specifically to the generative AI surge — which has more implications for the creative sector than many others.

But the question is, will AI replace marketers or make us better? And what about SEO? Will Googling be replaced with AI chatbots — and what does all that mean for content creation?

To answer these questions, I spoke with Samyutha Reddy, Jasper’s former Head of Enterprise Marketing, to explore her perspectives on what the future holds for AI in marketing and organic search.

Table of Contents

How do marketers use AI?

First, let’s consider how generative AI is even used in marketing.

Marketers surveyed in our 2024 State of AI in Marketing revealed the major tasks they use AI for. Top on that list are content creation, research, brainstorming, learning, and data analysis.

These tools are offering marketers the ability to generate content more quickly, analyze vast amounts of data with greater accuracy, and even come up with creative ideas through AI-powered brainstorming sessions. All leading to significantly positive ROI for their efforts.

Still, 48% of marketers in our survey are concerned about AI replacing their jobs in the next few years while a whopping 69% believes it’s a possibility that AI completely replaces human beings in the workplace one day.

But here’s why Reddy and I think that may not happen.

Why AI Won’t Replace Marketing

1. AI augments the human experience (but it doesn’t replace the human within that experience).

Generative AI can research any topic online and create original content, formatted as a blog post, email, ad, or more, based on the query — and in record time. In the future, rather than needing a team of five or ten content creators, will you just need one — someone to fact-check the AI's content?

Fortunately, Reddy isn't worried. In fact, even though her team used generative AI on a daily basis, she was still actively hiring and growing her team.

samyutha reddy quote, AI augments the human experience, but it doesn't replace the human within that experience.

As she puts it, “AI augments the human experience, but it doesn't replace the human within that experience. We value writers in our society because they're able to give us a thought-provoking human perspective on the world.

It isn't just about summarizing facts that are out there. It's about humans sharing opinions on very real topics that help build your perspective on how you feel about something. So an AI [tool] could really never replace that human perspective.”

2. AI still has biases.

Because generative AI is still early in its development, it is prone to potential biases and inaccuracies it cannot discern in the information it gathers. These biases can lead to skewed outputs that may not align with reality, making it essential to maintain human oversight in the process.

Reddy highlights this issue, stating, “AI has biases deeply embedded within its models that people are working on. AI has the tendency to hallucinate and start talking about random things when you're asking it for outputs, so it would be really tough to just completely remove a human from the process.”

This tendency of AI to “hallucinate” or produce irrelevant and sometimes nonsensical content underscores the importance of human intervention to ensure accuracy and relevance.

AI is a Tool For Marketers, Not a Replacement

Instead of viewing this technology as a threat, Reddy suggests marketers do this instead:

“I think the angle you take matters on this whole generative AI front. If you’re a writer, content creator, or a marketer, you’ll want to ask yourself:

‘Am I going to be someone that embraces technology and figures out how to upskill myself and actually become the cream of the crop in terms of talent? Or am I going to be someone who pushes technology away, refuses to believe it's happening, and clings onto an old way of life?’”

Although AI will not take your job, you must not underestimate its impact on your role as a marketer. Here’s how Reddy suggests you stay on top of this innovation.

1. Marketers will need to reskill.

As aspects of content creation become more automated, Reddy acknowledges that AI will force content creators to reskill. She told me, “I think it'll force content creators to re-skill. And I don't think that's a bad thing. I think that's what every big shift in technology has done for humans.”

She adds, “I've never met a content creator who has said, ‘Wait. I really want to spend more time doing all the rote tasks of reading everything I need to know on the internet about a given topic.’ AI will give marketers more time to be creative, form an opinion, and incorporate more data sources into their perspectives.”

Rather than thinking of AI as a content creator replacement, it‘s better to think of AI as a marketer’s efficient side-kick.

will marketing be replaced by AI? Tweet from Ross Simmonds

Image Source

Consider this: A marketer decides she wants to write a topic about SWOT analysis.

Rather than spending her morning chugging coffee and reading up on what SWOT analysis means, effective SWOT analysis examples, and how SWOT analyses can help businesses grow, she can simply plug the query into an AI chatbot.

Once she’s confirmed the sources the chatbot used to pull that information are accurate, she can quickly skim through the AI's response and learn everything she needs to begin writing about the topic. She can even use the AI’s response as a first draft, and strengthen it with her own unique tone and perspective.

From there, she can leverage the AI’s proofreading skills to edit her final copy.

Additionally, if the marketer has written a piece of content that she'd like to turn into an entire campaign, she can use AI to re-format her blog post into corresponding ad copy, which she can then hand over to her sales and paid ad teams.

As Reddy puts it, “I can effectively hand over to sales an entire drip campaign, an entire outbound sequence, complete with landing pages, with the ads that people will click and see.

And it really allows me to take control back on what it means to execute a campaign. It enables me to truly be a project manager and a strategist, versus someone who is waiting on other people to deliver their end of the bargain.”

57% of our surveyed marketers also confess to feeling pressured to learn new skills so AI won’t make them irrelevant — so this checks out.

2. Marketers will need to become experts in select AI platforms.

Freelancing platform Upwork recently added a new category, ‘Generative AI’, as a specialty within their marketplace.

This means business leaders can now hire freelance content creators who have expertise with a specific AI platform — and Reddy isn’t surprised.

She continues, “Similar to how a marketer can level-up by becoming HubSpot or Salesforce certified, I think we’ll soon see marketers who demonstrate their value by saying, ‘Hey, I’m skilled in using generative AI platforms.’”

Reddy sees marketers at the forefront of a tool that will ultimately upend all roles within a business, and she believes there's great privilege in being the first to adopt it.

samyutha reddy quote, I think there’s a certain power here that marketers can reclaim, and instead of being the victims in this story of ‘generative AI is coming for marketing’, I think we really reposition it as saying, 'generative AI has landed in the most innovative portion of the enterprise: marketing.

As she puts it, “I think there’s a certain power here that marketers can reclaim, and instead of being the victims in this story of ‘generative AI is coming for marketing’, I think we really reposition it as saying, ‘generative AI has landed in the most innovative portion of the enterprise: marketing.’”

She continues, “And we are now the stewards of this technology and how it'’l be used within the enterprise, and we get to pilot it and see how it can supercharge our work.

And the folks who lean into being the stewards of this powerful technology will reap its benefits. I consider myself and our industry extremely lucky to be in this position.”

But what about the search engines?

Away from getting quick answers to common queries, marketers use search engines to complete tasks like SEO optimization to improve website rankings, conduct keyword research to target relevant search terms and analyze competitors to improve their strategy.

Now, with research being the second most-popular use case for marketers using AI, it stands to reason that they'll be leveraging traditional search engines less often.

And as more people move to AI search engines, tools like HubSpot’s AI Search Grader are helping marketers optimize their search performance.

It's a free app that quickly analyzes your brand based on what your prospects and customers are seeing across AI search engines, then gives you actionable recommendations on how to improve.

But what does this mean for traditional search engines? Would we no longer need, or use, them?

Reddy begs to differ, particularly since the information supplied on search engines is what powers generative AI results. She however sees it drastically changing.

As she puts it, “Search can help battle AI’s inaccuracies. For instance, Jasper has a function where you can toggle on Google search results.

So if I say, ‘Jasper, help me write a paragraph about XYZ,’ it’ll write the paragraph, and at the bottom it’ll put in the Google search results it used while it helped me create that output.

So I have factual links which I can cite, and fact-check to ensure they're the most reliable piece of content on a given topic.”

She continues, “I don't see search going away. I do see a future where I don’t necessarily want to type things into a search bar, and instead, I want to use chat functionality. That, I think, is imminent.

And I think we're already seeing that with the virality of ChatGPT. In just a couple of days, it’s become the fastest-growing consumer app.”

samyutha reddy quote, Search can help battle AI’s inaccuracies ... So I have factual links which I can cite, and fact-check to ensure they're the most reliable piece of content on a given topic.

So, will marketing be replaced by AI?

In short, our marketing jobs and search engines are safe — for now.Ultimately, my conversation with Reddy felt positive and uplifting. As marketers, we don’t need to fear AI; We need to embrace it as technology that will help us do our jobs better.

And, personally, I‘m all for any tool that minimizes the amount of time I spend doing rote tasks, so I can get back to what really matters: creating content with the intention to move, inspire, or challenge readers’ to think differently.

Think HubSpot isn’t getting in on the generative AI action? Think again. Learn about our brand-new ChatSpot and Content Assistant tools and how you can access them.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in February 2023 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

What is Net Metering?

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What is net metering, and how does it function with solar energy systems to allow homeowners to receive credits for excess electricity generated? Could you explain the process, its advantages for reducing energy bills and promoting sustainability, and any potential limitations or challenges that users might encounter?

Webflow vs Squarespace: Which Website Builder Should You Use?

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Squarespace dominated the online website-building market for quite a while. Now, more platforms, such as Webflow, are offering competitive features and functionality, challenging Squarespace and other platforms.

One of the biggest complaints Squarespace users had was its limited customizability. Webflow aims to solve that problem but at a cost.

Today, we take a closer look at these two giant platforms to see which is best. Both Webflow and Squarespace come with unique features that set them apart from each other.

Which website builder should you use to build your website? Is Webflow better than Squarespace? Which platform offers the best benefits at the right price? Let’s find out.

What is Webflow?

webflow

Webflow is a powerful website builder that allows users to easily design and build custom websites using its easy-to-use “visual website builder”. Webflow is much more flexible and customizable than most other website builder platforms.

Webflow offers features more appealing to designers where you get to create your own custom website design from scratch without coding. In fact, Webflow even has a Figma plugin that lets you convert your static designs into functional web pages.

The platform also has templates and a page builder for quickly setting up basic websites and landing pages as well, allowing users without design experience to easily make their own websites.

Best Features

Let’s look at some of the main features of Webflow.

Make Websites from Scratch

webflow designer

Webflow’s Designer tool is the highlight of the platform. Unlike page builders, this Designer tool allows you to create your own website design from scratch using a blank canvas.

It allows you to code a website with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript using a visual designer, without writing any code. You can simply drag and drop elements onto the canvas to build and customize even the tiniest detail of each web page.

Webflow’s Interactions tool also helps you to add animations and interactions to your designs, without having to write code.

The Designer tool is most suitable for web designers and developers for quickly transforming their static designs and sketches into functional websites with zero coding.

Use Templates to Build Websites

webflow page builder

For users who are not familiar with making websites from scratch, Webflow offers a page builder that can be used in combination with templates.

This tool works the same as most other page builder platforms by allowing you to choose a pre-made website template and customize it to your preference. And it offers a much more simplified way to make a website for people without web design experience.

Built-In CMS

webflow cms

The built-in Content Management System (CMS) makes things much easier to manage all of your website’s content in one place. Since it’s integrated into the Webflow’s Designer, you can even edit and customize CMS content visually.

For advanced users, Webflow’s headless CMS APIs will offer more ways to build complex websites by connecting it with third-party platforms.

More Than 1,500 Templates

webflow templates

Webflow has a massive library of over 1,500 pre-built website templates that are available in many different categories. There are templates for every type of website from portfolios to agency websites, landing pages, one-page websites, and more.

eCommerce and Localization Support

The platform includes a complete eCommerce platform for building online stores and selling products. It supports selling both digital and physical products.

With Webflow’s Localization support, you can also distribute your website in different languages to target audiences around the world.

Figma to Webflow Plugin

Webflow offers a very useful plugin for web designers who use Figma. This plugin allows you to fully transform your static website designs into web pages with just a few clicks. It not only helps save you time but also empowers designers with a code-free website-building system.

Pricing Plans

Webflow has a slightly complex pricing system. Each pricing plan has limits to how many pages and CMS items you can have on your website. As well as limitations on bandwidth and form submissions.

The $14 per month plan allows you to make a website of up to 150 pages but it doesn’t let you host any content on the CMS and only offers 10GB of bandwidth. To access the CMS, you can switch to the $23 per month plan.

The $39 per month plan lets you host up to 300 pages and lets you host up to 10,000 CMS records with 100GB bandwidth.

There is also a free plan with very limited features.

What is Squarespace?

squarespace

Squarespace is one of the most popular website builders available, which is used by 2.1% of all websites on the web. The platform is a popular choice among all sorts of businesses and professionals for its ease of use and affordable pricing plans.

Squarespace comes with a very easy-to-use drag-and-drop website builder, which you can use to customize its templates and build basic websites for everything from restaurants to barber shops, photography portfolios, and more.

Using Squarespace is simple as it allows you to build a complete website in just a few steps. And that’s what makes this platform most appealing to a wide range of audiences.

Best Features

These are some of the benefits you get with Squarespace.

Beginner-Friendly Website Builder

squarespace editor

When using Squarespace, you must choose a template to build your website. Unlike Webflow, you can’t make a website from scratch. However, that makes the process much easier for beginners.

After choosing a template for your website, you can fully customize it using the drag-and-drop editor. It’s very straightforward and lets you make any type of website without having web design or coding knowledge.

Build Websites Using AI

squarespace ai

Squarespace also introduced AI-powered features to the platform. Dubbed Design Intelligence, this AI system allows users to setup a website with the help of AI, making the process easier than ever before.

The AI system, however, does not build complete websites. You still have to add some human touch to customize the layout, color themes, and other elements of the website. You can also use this AI to write your website copy, blog posts, emails, and more.

Squarespace Fluid Engine

squarespace fluid engine

Squarespace recently introduced a new system for building more customizable websites. They call it the Fluid Engine and it offers a platform similar to Webflow’s Designer to allow you to edit and customize every element of the website design. It’s available on Squarespace 7.1.

Hundreds of Pre-Built Templates

squarespace templates

Squarespace templates library offers hundreds of different website layouts in several different categories. You can use them to build all kinds of websites.

However, most of the templates available have basic layouts and some even have slightly outdated designs.

eCommerce and Marketing Tools

You can use Squarespace to setup a basic online store to sell your services, subscriptions, and even digital products. While it’s not the best platform for hosting large-scale online stores, Squarespace offers enough features to setup a small business website with a shop on the side.

Additionally, you will also have email marketing and SEO tools for optimizing your promo campaigns and generating traffic to your website.

Pricing Plans

Squarespace pricing plans start at $16 per month, which includes a free custom domain name and the ability to accept payments.

The $23 per month plan includes access to the eCommerce tools for setting up an online store. The $28 per month and $53 per month plans extend these features for building more advanced websites with merchandising, subscriptions, and other functions.

Webflow vs Squarespace: Which is Best?

The biggest difference between Webflow and Squarespace is ease of use. Squarespace offers a much more streamlined process for easily and quickly building websites without any design or coding experience.

Webflow, on the other hand, takes it a step further by giving you a visual designer to craft websites from scratch and truly customize each element on the web pages to your liking.

Simply put, Squarespace is most suitable for users looking to setup a basic website for their business without effort. Webflow is most suitable for advanced users and designers who wish to create custom website layouts of their own.

If you’re a freelance designer or marketer, go with Webflow. If you’re a small business or a professional looking for a place to host your portfolio, use Squarespace.

AI and Artistic Evolution How Machine Learning is Revolutionizing Creativity

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In the realm of art and creativity, technology has always played a transformative role. From the invention of the camera to digital painting tools, each advancement has expanded the boundaries of what is possible. Today, we stand on the cusp of a new artistic revolution, driven by the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine …

The post AI and Artistic Evolution How Machine Learning is Revolutionizing Creativity first appeared on Lucid Softech.