When it comes to presentations, people have grown to expect showstoppers. The popularity of TED Talks, often featuring professional public speakers at the top of their fields, has led many to see charisma, charm, and confidence in the spotlight as essentials for presenting. In fact, 86% of corporate employees surveyed agreed TED Talks are the presentation gold standard.

Employees see numerous potential benefits of these high-quality presentations in the workplace, with 49% believing they would motivate them to deepen their knowledge at work, 48% saying they would be opportunities for knowledge sharing, and 43% saying they would look forward to presentations instead of dreading them.

However, employees know that this pro-level of public speaking takes a lot of specialized skill and experience, and most don’t believe they (or their co-workers) have it. Only 9% of employees surveyed would rate their own presentation skills as ready for the TED stage, and a mere 4% believe that their company workforce already has top-notch presentation skills and doesn’t need additional training.

The remaining 96% of professionals generally agree that their workplace would benefit from dedicated training on presenting. Though, 55% hedge that the trainer would likely need to be exceptional to persuade people to join, underscoring people’s perception of the high level of skill necessary to be a great presenter.

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While presentations may have more design bells and whistles today, most presenters continue to grapple with the same chronic challenge: keeping the audience engaged throughout the presentation. This ranked as the top pain point for presenters (53%), followed by nerves and lack of confidence (46%) and breaking the ice to connect with the audience (44%).

Lack of regular feedback is another significant issue, also pointing to a disconnect between the presenter and audience. Among survey respondents, 98% value feedback from their presentation audience, but only 13% report consistently receiving it. While 42% of employees generally feel their presentations go well, they report feeling uncertain if their message is truly resonating.

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With most seeing TED Talks as the gold standard for presentations, it’s no surprise that storytelling prowess is considered the top quality of a great presenter (27%), as these talks tend to be solely speaker-focused and often utilize storytelling to connect the speaker and audience. However, according to employees surveyed, the ability to make presentations interactive is nearly as important (25%).

A focus on interactivity could be key to empowering more employees to become superstar presenters, without needing the skills and experience of a TED speaker, as presentation building technologies can make it easy for employees to weave interactivity into their presentations.

In addition to keeping audiences engaged through active participation, interactivity also addresses the challenges many presenters are facing with nerves. By transforming the presentation into a social experience and involving everyone, the presenter can avoid being the sole person in the spotlight.

Interactivity likewise establishes a continuous feedback loop, allowing presenters to regularly take the pulse of the audience and adjust their talking points or style in real time.

Since AI tools, particularly generative AI, have become more widely available, many employees and corporate teams are exploring how these tools can best support their work to be more efficient and impactful. While only 17% of professionals currently use AI to help create or host presentations, a significant 48% believe AI could be a valuable ally in the presentation game.