How to Use Gamma AI: A Step-by-Step Guide to the Gamma Presentation Maker

Gamma is an AI presentation maker that turns a prompt, pasted notes or an uploaded file into a designed deck you can edit, present from a link, or export to PowerPoint and PDF. To use it, you sign up for free, describe what you want or hand it your content, check the plan it proposes, let it generate, then tidy the result by hand or with the built-in AI agent. A first deck takes a few minutes, and the free plan is enough to find out whether the tool suits you.

This guide walks through each step, helps you pick the right starting option, and points out where Gamma is the wrong choice.

Checked 6 October 2026 against Gamma's help centre and pricing page. Gamma is rolling out a new version (Gamma 5) to all users, so button names on your screen may differ slightly from the ones below.

What Gamma is used for

Gamma's pricing page lists five things you can create: presentations, documents, websites, social posts and images. Most people arrive for the presentation maker, and the common jobs are:

• Getting a first draft of a deck from a one-line topic.
• Turning notes, a document or a PDF you already have into slides.
• Restyling an old PowerPoint file without rebuilding it.
• Sending a deck as a web link people scroll through, instead of an attachment.
• Building a simple one-page site or a formatted document.

One design choice shapes everything else. Gamma slides are fluid by default, which means they grow to fit their content instead of sitting on a fixed 16:9 canvas. That is great for decks people read on a screen and less convenient when the final file has to be a tightly formatted PowerPoint. More on that in step 7.

How to use Gamma AI for a presentation, step by step

1. Create a free account

Sign up at gamma.app. The free plan starts you with 400 AI credits and Gamma says no credit card is required. You land on a dashboard that holds everything you make, which Gamma calls "gammas."

2. Pick how you want to start

From the dashboard, click Create new AI. Gamma's help centre describes three ways in:

In the newer agent-led flow, the same choices sit behind a single prompt bar. You type the request, then use the + button to upload files or pull content from connected tools.

A few import details worth knowing before you start. Gamma accepts PowerPoint and Word files up to 200 MB and PDFs up to 100 MB. It can also read a web page from a link, files from Google Drive through its Connectors, and public Notion pages. When you import, you choose whether Gamma should preserve your content as written, condense it to key points, or expand it with extra detail. If your source is a long document, our guide to turning a document or PDF into slides with AI covers how to prepare it.

3. Write a brief that gives the AI something to work with

A one-line topic produces a generic deck. Two or three sentences produce a much better one. Tell Gamma:

• Who the audience is ("first-year marketing students," "a board that knows the numbers").
• What the deck has to achieve (inform, persuade, get a decision).
• Roughly how long it should be.
• Anything it must include or avoid.

Gamma's agent may ask a few clarifying questions about your goals and audience. You can answer them, choose "Decide for me," or skip them.

Length depends on your plan. The free plan generates up to 10 slides per prompt, and you can add more by hand afterwards. Gamma's pricing page lists up to 100 slides per prompt on paid plans.

4. Review the plan before it builds

Before generating, Gamma shows you its plan: the story the deck will tell, the style, and the look. Gamma's own documentation calls this "the highest-leverage moment in the flow," and that is fair. Reordering sections or cutting a weak one here costs you nothing. Regenerating a finished deck spends credits.

This is also where you set image preferences. You can ask for a text-only deck or for image placeholders you will fill in yourself, which is useful when you need real product photos or charts.

5. Edit the draft

Treat the generated deck as a first draft. You have two ways to improve it.

By hand. Click into any text and type. Use the Theme button in the top-right toolbar to try a different look across the whole deck; your choice saves automatically.

With AI. Gamma's help centre describes three entry points: the agent chat on the left side of the editor, a sparkle icon on each slide for changes to that slide only, and an AI editing toggle in the top left (Cmd+E on Mac, Ctrl+E on Windows). You can ask it to rewrite a section, change the theme, translate the deck, add a slide, or make one edit across every slide at once.

If you already know the deck will be exported to PowerPoint, open the three-dot menu in the top right, choose Page Setup, and set a 16:9 ratio. Gamma then shows dotted guidelines so you can see when a slide holds more than a standard slide would.

6. Present or share it

Click Present in the top-right corner and choose full screen or in-tab. Presenter View lets you see your speaker notes privately, and Spotlight mode (press S) highlights the part you are talking about and dims the rest.

To send the deck instead, use Share to create a link and set what people can do: view, comment or edit. This is where Gamma is strongest, because a shared link keeps the fluid layout and any embedded content intact.

7. Export if you need a file

Go to Share, then Export, and choose PDF, PNG or PowerPoint (PPTX). For Google Slides, Gamma's help centre says to export a PowerPoint file and upload that to Google Slides.

Three things to expect:

• Free-plan exports carry a "Made with Gamma" badge. It comes off on paid plans.
• Fonts can shift. Gamma notes that Google Slides ignores embedded fonts and substitutes its own, which changes how text looks.
• Layouts may need a tidy-up. A fluid slide does not always map cleanly onto a fixed one.

Open the exported file in PowerPoint and click through it before you send it to anyone. If PowerPoint is your real destination, read can AI create a PowerPoint presentation for the difference between tools that export into PowerPoint and tools that work inside it.

How to use Gamma AI for free

You can do everything above on the free plan. The limits are these:

• 400 credits, once. Gamma's help centre is explicit that free credits do not refresh. Every AI action uses some, and the cost varies with the action, the AI model and the length of what you generate.
• More credits through referrals. Free users earn 200 credits for each friend who joins, and a free account can hold up to 2,000 credits.
• Up to 10 slides per prompt.
• The badge on shared and exported decks.

To make the credits last:

1. Fix the plan in step 4 so you generate once.
2. Make small wording changes by typing, and save AI edits for jobs that would take you a long time.
3. Use Paste when you already have the text. You get Gamma's design without asking it to write.
4. Spend your first credits on a deck you really need, so you judge the tool on real work.

Paid plans start with Plus at around $10 a month, which removes the badge and adds a monthly credit allowance (1,000 credits, according to Gamma's help centre). Check Gamma's pricing page for the current figure, because third-party sources quote slightly different prices. For how Gamma's free tier compares with others, see the best free AI presentation tools.

Where Gamma falls short

Gamma is a good fit for web-shared decks and quick first drafts. It is a weaker fit in three situations.

Your team lives in PowerPoint. An export is a translation, and translations need checking. Tools that build slides inside the app skip that step, such as Microsoft Copilot for PowerPoint or Plus AI, which also works in Google Slides.

You need strict brand control. Gamma's pricing page puts custom branding on the Pro plan, so a free or Plus account gives you themes without full company branding.

You want design freedom over speed. Gamma decides most layout questions for you. If you prefer to place every element yourself, a design tool such as Canva gives you more control and asks for more of your time. Gamma vs Canva compares the two.

Our roundup of Gamma alternatives lists other options by what they do better.

Quick answers

Can Gamma AI make videos? Gamma is a presentation, document and website tool, and its export options are PDF, PNG and PowerPoint. No video file export is listed in its help centre. You can embed videos in a deck, and the pricing page mentions video among the advanced AI models on the top Ultra plan. If your goal is a finished video, a dedicated video tool is the better route.

Does Gamma work with PowerPoint and Google Slides? It imports PowerPoint files and exports to PPTX. It does not run inside PowerPoint or Google Slides the way an add-in does.

Is there a Gamma mobile app? Yes, in early access on iOS and Android in the US and Canada. You can generate, view, present and share from it. Editing on the app goes through the AI agent only, so detailed manual edits still need a desktop browser.

Can it write in other languages? Gamma's help centre says the generator and editor support multiple languages. Write your prompt or paste your text in the language you want and it follows.

Next step

The fastest way to judge Gamma is to make one real deck with it and export a copy. Before you do, the Gamma listing summarises pricing, export behaviour and limits in one place. If you would like to see what else is available first, browse the AI presentation makers category.