pptx Skill — Presentations from Company Templates

Overview

The pptx skill lets the Unique AI Conduct agent create and edit PowerPoint presentations that follow your company's own templates — correct fonts, colors, layouts, logos, and branding on every slide. It covers the full lifecycle: reading and extracting content from .pptx files, building new decks from your templates, editing existing decks, and running quality checks (layout, text fit, contrast, dates) before delivering the file.

Users don't configure anything. They ask for a presentation in a Conduct space ("Create a 6-slide pitch about X") and receive a downloadable, on-brand .pptx. The one thing that determines output quality is set up by an admin: a shared folder with your company's PowerPoint templates in the Knowledge Base.

Who is it for?

• Admins — this page is mainly for you: one setup step (a shared folder of templates) makes every deck the agent produces come out on-brand.

• End users — nothing to set up. Ask for a deck; the agent handles template discovery, asks you to confirm the template, and delivers a download link.

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Model requirements

Presentation generation is one of the most demanding skills the agent runs. It duplicates real template slides, fills them with generated content, and then visually inspects each rendered slide — checking for overlapping text, cut-off titles, out-of-bounds elements, and poor contrast — before delivering the file. Because of that visual QA step, the pptx skill requires an LLM that combines strong reasoning with vision (image) capabilities. A model without vision cannot see and correct layout issues on the rendered slides, and output quality degrades significantly.

The skill runs inside Conduct — the Unique agent stage and harness. The model behind Conduct is the single biggest driver of output quality. The matrix below tracks which models have been validated for the pptx skill; new models are added as rows as they are tested.

Tested settings

Agent loop limit — set at least 400. Producing and visually QA-ing a full deck currently takes the agent roughly 150–200 loops (agent iterations) end to end. The Conduct agent's maximum loop setting defaults to 400 and can be raised up to 1000. Leave it at 400 or above so the agent has enough headroom to finish a deck — including the visual QA and layout-fix passes — without being cut off mid-generation. A limit near the actual loop count risks the agent stopping before the deck is complete.

Setup guide (admins)

The skill builds decks by duplicating slides from a real company template. It can also build a deck from scratch when no template is available, but the result won't be on-brand. To get on-brand decks it needs your templates in the Knowledge Base. This is a one-time setup.

Step 1 — Create a template folder.
Create a shared folder in the Knowledge Base that your Conduct users can read (for example a Templates folder). One folder holding all templates is the recommended setup, but you can split them across multiple folders if that fits your organization better.

Step 2 — Upload your .pptx templates.
Add the master corporate deck plus any variants (pitch deck, QBR, one-pager, department templates). Real presentation files work best — the agent duplicates their slides directly, so covers, closing slides, and a range of content layouts should all be present.

Step 3 — Ingest the template files (recommended).
The agent finds templates by searching the Knowledge Base, and templates are much better discovered when their files are ingested. Ingestion is per file, so ingest each .pptx template.

Side note: ingestion isn't strictly mandatory — the agent can also reach the files directly via the CLI, so the skill works without it. But discovery is far more reliable with ingested files, so ingesting is recommended.

Step 4 — Check access.
Users only see templates in folders their own Knowledge Base permissions allow. A folder a user cannot read is invisible to the skill for that user.

That's it — there is no separate registration step. Once the templates are readable (and ideally ingested), the agent discovers them by searching the Knowledge Base the first time a user asks for a presentation.

Template quality guidelines:

The agent stays very close to the template — it duplicates real slides and replicates whatever it finds there. That means the template is the ceiling on output quality: a clean, complete template produces clean, on-brand decks, while a messy one gets its clutter faithfully reproduced on every slide. Invest in the template and the results follow.

• Keep the template clean. Clean footers, clean and consistent layouts, correct page numbering, and no leftover clutter — stray text boxes, off-slide elements, orphaned placeholders, or off-brand artifacts. The agent copies what it sees, so anything untidy in the template shows up in the generated deck.

• Put everything you want replicated in the template. If a slide type, layout, footer, or branding element isn't in the file, the agent has nothing to copy — it can only replicate what's there. It's better to give it a richer, complete, well-built template than to expect it to invent the missing pieces.

• Include a proper cover slide and closing slide — the skill treats them as branding bookends and keeps them on every deck.

• Include a variety of content layouts (title + bullets, two-column, image + text) so the agent can pick a suitable slide to duplicate for each part of the story.

• Keep placeholder text realistic in length — the agent matches its content volume to what the template slide originally held.

How it works for users

1. Ask for a deck in a Conduct space: "Create a presentation about our Q3 results, ~8 slides."

2. Confirm the template. The agent searches the Knowledge Base for the template folder and opens a single confirmation dialog: all templates it found, with a best guess pre-selected, plus a free-text field to steer the search if the right template isn't listed.

3. Template selection happens on every request. The selection dialog is shown each time you ask for a deck — there is no saved default that skips it. You choose the template (and can switch to a different folder or template) for that presentation each time.

4. The agent builds and checks the deck — duplicating template slides, filling in content, then running automated QA: text fitting inside placeholders, no overlapping titles, nothing out of bounds, readable contrast (no light text drifting onto imagery), consistent dates, intact branding bookends.

5. Download link at the end of the turn. The finished .pptx is delivered as a clickable download card. The in-platform preview can render fonts and spacing slightly off — users should download and open the file in PowerPoint for the true layout.

Uploading a .pptx to the chat

When a user uploads a .pptx, the agent asks what role it plays:

• Working file — the agent edits the uploaded deck itself (e.g. "fix the dates in this deck").

• Content only — the agent extracts the text/content and rebuilds it on the company template; the upload's design is not copied. This is the right choice for "turn this old deck into our current branding".

Tips for admins

• A clean template is the single biggest lever on output quality. The agent replicates the template closely, so clean footers, consistent layouts, and no leftover clutter matter more than anything else. Everything you want in the output should already exist, clean, in the template — the agent copies what's there rather than inventing what's missing.

• Fewer, better templates beat many stale ones. Every template in the folder shows up in the user's confirmation dialog — curate the folder.

• Name templates descriptively (Corporate Pitch 2026.pptx, QBR Template.pptx) — the names are what users see when confirming, and what the agent's best-guess matching uses.

• Update in place, then re-ingest. Replacing a template file keeps the same folder — just re-ingest that file afterwards so the new version is well discovered. There is nothing else to re-register.

• Brand colors come from the template. The agent inherits theme colors, fonts, and master backgrounds from the chosen template file and never applies its own palette. If decks come out off-brand, the fix is almost always in the template file itself.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Where does the skill itself come from? Do I need to install it?
A: No — it ships with the platform and is available in Conduct spaces automatically. Admins only provide the template folder. One caveat: if a personal copy of the skill already exists in the Knowledge Base, it does not update automatically when a new version ships. Remove that copy so the current version re-syncs.

Q: The templates don't show up for users.
A: Discovery is most reliable when the template files are ingested into the Knowledge Base. Also confirm the users have read permission on the folder.

Q: Can I set a default template so I'm not asked every time?
A: No — the template selection dialog is shown on every request. Each time you ask for a deck you pick the template for that presentation.

Q: Users report the preview looks broken but the file is fine.
A: Expected — the in-platform preview substitutes fonts and can shift spacing. The generated file is correct; download and open it in PowerPoint to verify the true layout.

Q: The agent picked the wrong folder or template.
A: The confirmation dialog has a search field — users can type the template name or a keyword and the agent re-searches the Knowledge Base. If templates are missing, ingesting their files improves discovery, and check that the users' Knowledge Base permissions include the folder.

Q: My decks come out looking off-brand or messy.
A: Almost always the template is the cause — the agent replicates it closely rather than fixing it. Check the template for clean footers, consistent layouts, correct page numbers, and no stray or off-brand elements, and make sure every layout and branding element you expect in the output is present in the file. Clean the template and re-run.

Q: Can users bring their own template?
A: Yes — uploading a .pptx to the chat and choosing "working file" uses it for that session. Chat uploads are never saved as anyone's default; company-wide templates should live in the shared folder.