question tool for presentation

Presentation Guru

How to get instant feedback from your audience.

Getting your audience engaged is the most important thing you can do when presenting. We previously published an article on Zeetings , a program that lets the audience become part of the story by using an interactive program directly from their smartphones. Here, Farshad has reviewed ten other programs that you can use to make sure your audience becomes part of the story, instead of just listening to it. 

Sometimes the biggest enemy of a presenter is doubt. One can get a bit jittery by looking at uncertain faces in the crowd. You might want to know what your audience is thinking so that you may be able to refine your presentation in case you’re going off track. One of the best ways to find out what your audience is thinking is to use polls. Conducting live polls during a presentation session can help you gather instant feedback and fine tune your presentation on the fly to ensure you can be on top of your game.

There are a number of polling apps, devices and plugins that you can use for conducting live polls during presentations. Different polling tools provide different options, including some which even enable presenters to continuously gather audience feedback and view brief statistics as they present their slides. If you want to use polls in your presentations like a  pro, then here are 10 best polling tools to gather instant audience feedback.

1)  Presentain

Presentain is a presentation web app where you can either upload and present a PDF, PPT or PPTX file or fetch a file using your Google Drive account to present your presentation right from an internet browser. Presentain provides presenters with a URL that can be shared with the audience so they can follow your slides live as you present them, using any internet connected device.

Your audience can also take part in Live polls using the same URL, allowing you to not only present your slides by broadcasting them via the internet but also to instantly gather audience feedback by offering them polls. In fact, your audience can even ask you questions using their internet connected devices.

Here is a brief introductory video which shows all the basic features of Presentain.

2)  PollEverywhere

PollEverywhere is an audience response system which enables creating polls in PowerPoint and Google Slides. The PollEverywhere add-in for PowerPoint or the Chrome extension for Google Slides can be used to create polls and gather audience feedback by allowing people to participate in polls via internet connected devices such as smartphones tablets or laptops. Furthermore, your audience can also respond to polls via Twitter.

PollEverywhere has a comprehensive set of features for conducting polls and quizzes using open ended questions, multiple choice questions, true or false quizzes, as well as clickable image and Q&A polls.

Here is a short video which explains the main features of PollEverywhere.

3)  Mentimeter

Mentimeter is an audience response system which allows presenters to create polls using multiple choice or open ended questions, polls based on a point-based system, or use dual axis or scales to gather audience feedback. Your audience will be able to cast their votes via a designated URL. This means your audience can instantly cast their votes by using their mobile phones, tablets or laptops during a Live presentation session.

Here is an introductory video which explains how Mentimeter works.

Swipe is a comprehensive presentation web app which can not only allow you to conduct polls but you can also use it as a PowerPoint alternative. You can get started with Swipe by uploading a PDF or image file, and even embed videos from YouTube and Vimeo.

With Swipe you can design your slide decks and add polls to your presentations. Like most polling systems, Swipe provides a polling URL for the audience to respond to polls.

5)  ParticiPoll

ParticiPoll is a PowerPoint add-in which can help you add polls to your PowerPoint slides. You can start using Participoll by signing-up for a free account, picking a polling URL and downloading the add-in to start adding polls to your PowerPoint slides. Your audience will be able to respond to polls using your custom polling URL.

The data gathered via Participoll is logged to your account, which means you can login anytime to your Participoll account to view audience feedback.

6) Ask The Room

If you’re looking for a free and easy way of conducting a Live poll during a presentation, you can also use Ask The Room . With Ask The Room you can instantly set up a poll by using options like ‘Yes’, ‘No’ and ‘Don’t Know’. Ask the Room requires no sign-up and you can begin your poll by going to the home page, and clicking on Start Poll. You will be provided with a custom URL to share with your audience where they can poll, and you will be able to see the result in real-time via your browser.

7) ActiVote

If you are looking for a voting system for educational purposes that comes with associated hardware clickers that your audience can use, then Activote can be a good option. ActiVote is a comprehensive polling system by which you can create polls on your computer and allow your audience to respond using ActiVote clickers.

The primary use of ActiVote is for educational purposes and it can be a good option for conducting quizzes or assessing your students using various voting based activities. ActiVote works with Windows, Mac and Linux.

OMBEA is an audience response system which can be used to insert interactive slides in PowerPoint to conduct polls during presentations. OMBEA not only works with laptops, smartphones and tablets but is also compatible with remote clickers.

You can conduct polls using open ended or multiple choice questions and enable your audience to respond using remote clickers or internet connected devices. This makes OMBEA easy to use and expands the number of devices that can be instantly turned into remote clickers.

9) iClicker

If you are looking for a clicker based polling system, which also supports clicker devices, then iClicker is an audience response system that you should look into. This clicker based polling system enables you to gather audience feedback by allowing them to poll using smartphones, tablets, or clicker remotes.

To find out all about how iClicker works, see the developer’s introductory video given below.

10) ClickAPad

ClickAPad is another comprehensive audience response system which not only provides a polling add-in for PowerPoint but also offers clicker remotes for purchase or rent. ClickAPad has a number of products that you can look into for conducting polls during your events to quickly gather audience opinion regarding a specific topic.

The tools mentioned above include both free and paid tools, with basic to advanced polling options. Whether you are a teacher, business professional, or just someone looking to conduct a survey during a live presentation, the aforementioned polling tools can help you conduct polls and fine tune your presentation in view of live audience feedback.

If you liked this, then you might also like

A conference calling platform which allows you to conduct instant polls: How to Deliver Online Presentations During Remote Meetings

Using audience polls in a webinar :  Why Webinars are Great and How to Design Them Effectively

Using audience polls to keep your audience engaged: 7 Surprisingly Simple Ways to Keep Your Audience Hooked

5 More Ways to Get Instant Feedback from your Audience

• Latest Posts

Farshad Iqbal

+farshad iqbal, latest posts by farshad iqbal ( see all ).

• Let’s look at Interactive Digital Whiteboards - 6th March 2018
• Six of the Best Laptops for Presenters - 16th January 2018
• Where Can I Find Great Clip Art and More for Powerpoint? - 12th December 2017
• The Best Digital Whiteboards for Presenters - 21st November 2017
• The Best Screen Mirroring Apps and Technology for Every Occasion - 24th October 2017

35 Comments

Jack Vincent

10th January 2017 at 2:53 pm

These are really good recommendations. I’ve also used a tool called HappyScore http://about.happyscore.io , which is a bit different.

Good stuff, Farshad. Thanks!

27th September 2017 at 3:35 pm

Let me add Meeting Pulse to the list. It works well and looks really nice. https://meet.ps

People use it for classes and lectures because the free version allows to poll up to 50 people. It’s also good for business meetings and webcasts. Features include – 15 second to set up a poll – all popular questions types – works for every device – no need to install anything – very simple

You can also run Q&A and create surveys.

jeremy pokers

22nd November 2017 at 11:02 am

These are really good recommendations. I’ve also used a tool called BugRem , http://www.BugRem.com which is a bit different.

Lesley Barringer

23rd November 2017 at 1:55 pm

Hi Jeremy Thank you for your comment! I’ve just visited BugRem’s site to investigate, and it looks interesting and has a free trial too… Thanks again Lesley

Ben Bradbury

19th December 2017 at 2:08 pm

Great article Farshad! Glisser is also a simple way to collect instant feedback from your audience. All web-based, nothing to download, and their polls are pushed instantly meaning you collect the maximum level of feedback from your audience. You can also share your slides and ask questions through it too.

Check it out here: http://www.glisser.com

Rosie Hoyland

19th December 2017 at 3:17 pm

Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Ben. I’ve just looked at your website – interesting (and useful)…

John Dineen

4th January 2018 at 2:44 pm

Great post. I stumbled across the post while I was searching for embedded polls. To add another tool to the mix – Pubble Live Q&A: https://www.pubble.io/live-qa

Pubble’s live Q&A is deigned to be incorporated into the conference / event website. It enables the participants to ask questions and follow the thread live. It includes a presenter mode for the presenter to display selected questions on the main stage.

Moderation is supported. You can also push in questions from Twitter. Lots of other cool features, detailed on the product page above.

5th January 2018 at 11:48 am

Thanks for sharing this John. It looks like your tool would be useful for hosting live audience Q&As. Have you seen our article on this: https://www.presentation-guru.com/5-easy-to-use-solutions-to-boost-your-audience-engagement/ which gives tips on how best to incorporate Q&A sessions into your presentation?

Ronnie Overgoor

11th March 2018 at 7:29 pm

Maybe a good idea to add NorthPolls to the list: http://www.northpolls.com . NorthPolls is extremely easy to operate by the chairman of the day on the stage via his or her own smartphone.

12th March 2018 at 11:33 am

We’ll check it out Ronnie – thanks

Heera Malik

4th April 2018 at 6:14 pm

I suggestion to try BugRem tool. #www.BugRem.com

Leo Budrinca

13th April 2018 at 10:02 am

You can also try for free https://hypersay.com/ Hypersay is a platform for interactive presentations that massively increase engagement. Keep your audience engaged with polls, questions, private notes and live slide sharing. Store, enrich & deliver presentations from your cloud.

17th April 2018 at 3:58 pm

Here’s another free tool for Polling, Quizzing, Audience Questions (and voting), slides follow-through, after-session audience feedback, and instant slide-deck handout. http://www.beamkast.com

Frank Zielen

18th April 2018 at 3:58 pm

Here’s another one: “Poll At Once”.

This is a free native app for iOS and Android. It’s just one touch to start a poll and designed for live audiences. Attendees can just answer A,B,C or D. No sign up and total anonymous.

Check out here: https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/poll-at-once/id1366256403?mt=8 or https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.zmb.poll

Maybe you like it.

Nidhi Bambalkar

12th May 2018 at 4:17 am

Nice but one more to add i.e. Customer feedback tool.

15th May 2018 at 9:58 am

That’s a great post. And it really helps. It gets more and more difficult to keep the audience engaged while presenting. We stick to directpoll.com. It is a very simple solution for real time feedback on your live stream poll.

15th May 2018 at 11:09 am

Thanks Kate – you’re absolutely right and it’s great to find out what people are using day-to-day.

Llarry Watson

19th June 2018 at 12:11 pm

Hi! Great blog! To get instant feedback from audience and customers, you can use feedback apps. Feedback apps are cost efficient and provide accurate results. Soft Intelligence Data Centre has engagement apps for organizations and businesses which help in the overall growth. You must check out them once.

19th June 2018 at 12:14 pm

We will do! Thanks for the tip.

12th July 2018 at 1:00 pm

Nice article! I just wanted to introduce you to a polling based mobile app that I developed recently, called Pollpop (pollpopapp.app.link). It’s about organizing polls and discussions within your groups or the public at large. Let me know your thoughts. Cheers!

13th July 2018 at 10:02 am

Thanks Dev – we’ll take a look.

Melissa R Halvorsen

10th September 2018 at 6:21 pm

I tried to use Presentain, and it’s essentially useless in America. It’s based in Ukraine, and their app isn’t available to the US market. It’s a paid platform, so buyer beware.

18th September 2018 at 1:06 pm

Hi Melissa,

I have previously used Presentain without any issues, however I recently tried it again after seeing your comment and it seems there might be a bug preventing users to log into the app. You can try other options in the post to gather audience feedback as an alternative.

Recently, I used Mentimeter for feedback after a presentation at my organization. I used emoticons representing satisfied and unsatisfied audience and conducted a Live poll and it worked out perfectly.

Dave Horchak

6th October 2018 at 8:42 pm

The whole idea is assinine. Real science shows once you are part of the group tour measurements are worthless. The audience knowing they are being viewed and measured will give answers they think you want instead of true opinions. Waste of time and money more harm then good as it will support your preconceived notions and give failed erroneous data.

23rd January 2019 at 4:36 am

I have a new engagement tool for free has a lot of features to engage and attract your audience http://www.enablerplus.com

19th July 2019 at 11:05 am

These are really amazing tools. You can also add 2Shoes App in your list. Thanks for sharing.

Shahani Markus

7th September 2019 at 3:20 pm

Check out http://www.emojot.com – it is a full-fledged voice-of-audience solution (as well as a voice-of-customer and voice-of-employee solution). Its capabilities are best suited for enterprises. It has been used for TV, radio and large conferences as well as in small group meetings.

brian schott

20th December 2019 at 10:58 pm

Please consider Pollaborator.appspot.com

Pollaborator http://pollaborator.appspot.com/ is a unique, free web app which enables anyone with a google account to create a PARTICIPATIVE poll: in addition to indicating preferences in Pollaborator, respondents can add their own questions/comments for future respondents to indicate their preferences, too. To experiment with Pollaborator go to this link http://pollaborator.appspot.com/table?ID=codeBSchott (anyone, no account is needed).

Elizabeth Keshishyan

23rd December 2019 at 3:22 pm

These are some great tools. I would also add to the list the Swift Polling by ExciteM ( https://swift.excitem.com ) which allows for PowerPoint integration and SMS voting. This is a life-saving solution for cases when people do not own smartphones.

19th April 2020 at 5:21 pm

I can recommend to have a look at Poll For All ( https://pollforall.com ) The poll result view in the app gets real time updates and can be used in presentations. There is a web app, which can be opened directly in a desktop browser.

21st April 2020 at 4:07 pm

I will take a look – thanks for bringing it to our attention.

20th June 2020 at 1:51 pm

Hi, farshad! These are a really awesome tool in today’s world to take instant feedback from the audience and most of them I never heard about. I will definitely go to use them and share it as much as possible because it creates a lot of disturbance during a session to ask audience review over a certain topic. Thanks a lot for sharing them!

Prakriti Sarvouy

21st August 2020 at 11:18 am

Try Pollpop for voting and discussions within your group. It’s pretty slick. You can ask a question to your group (along with images, videos, maps, even other widgets, and options). Ask as a private or semi-private option. Your group gets a chance to vote and discuss the topic. You also get a cool analysis of the voting results, so you clearly know who stands where. You can also add your group members as connections for future discussions.

• App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/ph/app/pollpop/id993397343?mt=8 • Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.amaze.pollpop&hl=en • Website: http://pollpopapp.com

17th September 2020 at 11:19 am

This sounds fantastically useful! Thanks for sharing.

Muhammad Lodhi

18th February 2021 at 4:23 pm

Excellent information and comments by everyone. I am looking for free software to run polls from my PowerPoint presentation for my students without adding any cost to them – they are already paying a hefty price for books and online resources. Poll Everywhere looks good but charges students. Has anyone else a product to share with me. Please send information to me at [email protected] . Thank you for the belp.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Follow The Guru

Join our Mailing List

Join our mailing list to get monthly updates and your FREE copy of A Guide for Everyday Business Presentations

The Only PowerPoint Templates You’ll Ever Need

Anyone who has a story to tell follows the same three-act story structure to...

Powerpoint Zoom Summary for interactive presentations – everything you need to know

In this article I’ll be showing you how you can use Powerpoint Zoom to...

How to get over ‘Impostor Syndrome’ when you’re presenting

Everybody with a soul feels like an impostor sometimes. Even really confident and experienced...

Live Q&A

• anonymously
• without downloads or logins
• live or in advance

Run more effective Q&A in 3 steps

1. create your slido.

Create your Q&A session and let your participants join via a code or link.

2. Collect questions

Let people send and upvote the questions they want to hear answered.

3. Share with your audience

Show the questions on the screen and manage them live.

See how it works

Try asking a question, voting on others or checking the replies. Please note that the questions are moderated – they won’t appear in the Host view immediately.

Participant view

Create a safe space with anonymous questions.

Many great questions never get asked because of a lack of courage. With Slido, people can submit questions anonymously, which brings even the most pressing ones to light.

Let people upvote the most important topics

Make your Q&A or Ask Me Anything sessions more efficient and democratic. Slido lets everyone see and upvote each other’s questions, pushing the most relevant ones to the top.

Steer clear of the irrelevant questions

Keep your live Q&A clear of irrelevant, duplicate or poorly formulated questions. Moderation allows you to review all incoming questions before your participants can see them.

Keep your Q&A transparent and organized

Let everyone see which question is being answered at the moment. Slido lets you display and manage live questions so it’s easier for everyone to follow the discussion.

Export all questions in one click

Get an overview of the top questions, topics and the sentiment of your Q&A. All questions are automatically saved in your account, ready for download and analysis.

Get more from Slido Q&A

Collect questions in advance.

Start collecting questions before the Q&A via a link and get more time to prepare the answers.

Control who can access your Q&A with SSO, passcode or other privacy settings.

Co-host support

Invite your colleagues as additional hosts to help you moderate the Q&A session.

Make your Q&A more organized by categorizing the questions with labels.

Reply to submitted questions as a host and let participants comment on each other’s questions as well.

Sentiment analysis BETA

Analyze the tone of the questions and see how many were positive, negative or neutral.

Run live Q&A from your favorite tool

See why others love slido.

The ease of use is huge. You can set up and run a Q&A or a survey in no time.

Slido is intuitive and simple. Our employees got it instantly without any special instructions. And it’s easy for me to manage. The user experience is excellent.

As an organizer, you want the event technology to be intuitive and easy, and that’s what Slido is.

I do feel that our people collaborate more effectively together now based on these sessions. The Q&A sessions also make the information we all need to do our job well readily available.

We’ve tried many traditional ways to collect questions via email or using physical question boxes. Overall, Slido got us the highest amount of questions in the shortest amount of time.

Instead of multiple follow-up calls about the same topic, we now get most questions during the meeting and we address them instantly. This saves me a lot of time.

Using Slido helped the team engage participants even more than they did during the physical events.

Slido allows people to come out of their shells and overcome their shyness. It helps us uncover ideas from silent employees.

Slido helps us build that trust we need for people to open up. Anonymity gives people a chance to respond without speaking out loud and feeling judged. It’s powerful.

We used to get complaints about the representativeness of questions, but this has all gone thanks to Slido.

Slido is an essential part of any event I produce. I love that it provides more efficient Q&A by encouraging clear, concise questions and democratizing the conversation.

The ability to democratize the Q&A portion of most sessions helps mitigate the dominant perspectives being the only ones being voiced at the conference and ensures everyone has a voice.

Host better Q&A sessions with Slido.

Best Q&A Apps to Engage With Your Audience | 5+ Platforms For Free in 2024

Ellie Tran • 13 Mar 2024 • 7 min read

Live Q&A struggles: A flood of questions or a room full of crickets? Let’s help you navigate both extremes! Could it be the wrong Q&A tools, irrelevant topics and questions, or poor presentation skills? Let’s fix these problems together.

There are so many challenges, for both you and your audience, when it comes to keeping everyone on the same page.

• Struggling to set up a smooth Q&A for your live event?  This guide on Hosting Fee live Q&A sessions will show you the ropes, ensuring a comfortable experience for both you and your audience.
• How to ask questions
• 150 Funny Questions To Ask for Guaranteed Laughs and Fun
• How to Ask Open Ended Questions | 80+ Examples in 2024
• Questions that make you think
• 85+ Interesting Topics For Discussion (Online and Offline)
• Hosting Live Q&A Session | 10 Tips To Make A Massive Success
• If you’re struggling to choose the best Q&A platforms fitting your needs, check out these top 5 of the best Q&A apps , which could give you a hand when your audience has theirs in the air.

Let’s read…

Table of Contents

• Pigeonhole Live

Frequently Asked Questions

More funs in your icebreaker session.

Instead of a boring orientation, let's start a fun quiz to engage with your mates. Sign up to take free quiz from AhaSlides template library!

#1 – AhaSlides | Best Q&A Apps

AhaSlides is considered one of the best free Q&A platforms which equips presenters with everything they need to facilitate lively events. You can use AhaSlides for almost everywhere, during work meetings, training, lessons, webinars…

Hosting Live Question and Answer session with AhaSlides makes it easy for participants to interact with the slides, and to create and manage the presentation flow better.

AhaSlides question and answer app can be easily setup, with lots of cool themes available, flexible customisation and background music.

AhaSlide stands out to be one of the best free audience interaction tools, to empower participants to ask questions, speak up, and participate in the discussion. This is a real game-changer when it comes to keeping track of all questions and conveniently addressing them.

Every step is simple and free, from the sign-up to creating and hosting your Q&A session. Participants can join any presentation to ask questions (even anonymously) simply by using a short link or scanning a QR code with their phones.

Being not only the top Q&A software in the market, with AhaSlides, you can try other exciting features like online quiz creator , online poll maker , live word cloud generator and spinner wheel , to energise your crowd!

Here are 6 reasons why  AhaSlides  is one of the best Q&A apps…

Question moderation

Approve or dismiss questions before showing them on the presenter's screen.

Profanity filter

Hide inappropriate words in questions submitted by your audience.

Question upvoting

Let participants upvote others' questions. Find the most liked questions in the top questions category.

Send questions whenever

Allow participants to ask questions at any time, so they don't forget them.

Audio embed (paid plans)

Add audio to a slide to have background music on your device and participants' phones.

Participants can send their questions without the fear of being judged or when they don't want to reveal their names.

Other Free Features

• Full background customisation
• Customisable heading and description
• Mark questions as answered
• Sort questions how you want
• Clear responses
• Presenter notes
• Export questions for later

Cons of AhaSlides

Lack of some display options – AhaSlides displays everything in a fixed layout, with the only customisable option being the alignment of the heading. Users can also pin questions, but there’s no way to zoom in on a particular question or make it full-screen.

#2 – Slido

Slido is a great Q&A and polling platform for meetings, virtual seminars and training sessions. It sparks conversations between presenters and their audience and lets them express their opinions.

Slido makes online presentations more engaging, fun and exciting by providing many interactive tools. Features including polling, Q&A and quizzes make it easy for users to have a virtual conversation with their audiences.

This platform offers an easy way to collect questions, prioritise discussion topics and host all-hands meetings or any other format of Q&A. Slido is user-friendly; it only takes a few simple steps for both presenters and participants to set up and use. A small lack of visualisation options follows its simplicity, but everything it has in store for the users is pretty enough for online interaction.

Here are 6 reasons why  Slido  is one of the best Q&A apps…

Fullscreen highlights

Show highlighted questions in fullscreen.

Search questions by keywords to save time.

Archive answered questions to clear the screen and see them afterwards.

Question editing

Allow presenters to edit questions in the admin panel before showing them on their screens.

Let participants upvote others' questions. The most liked ones are in the popular category.

Question review (paid plans)

Review, approve or dismiss questions before presenting them on the screen.

• 40 default themes
• Anonymous questions
• Data export

Cons of Slido

• Lack of visual flexibility – Slido only provides background customisation for paid plans. There are no heading, description and layout customisations and Slido display no more than 6 questions on the screen.
• Lack of some useful features – There are no presenter notes on Q&A slides, profanity filter to block unwanted words and no chat for participants to leave messages.

Is Slido really anonymous?

Slido is a popular audience interaction platform used for presentations, conferences, and events. While Slido does offer anonymous features, it’s important to note that the level of anonymity may depend on the specific settings and configuration chosen by the event organizer.

#3 – Mentimeter

Mentimeter is an audience platform to use in a presentation, speech or lesson. It’s easy to use, vividly designed and often used to add interactive activities with notable features like Q&A, polling and surveys. The platform enables users to have more fun and practical sessions with their audiences and create better connections.

Its live Q and A feature works in real-time, making it easy to collect questions, interact with participants and gain insights afterwards. The audience can join with their smartphones to connect to the presentation, ask questions, play quizzes or join other brainstorming activities.

Educational institutes widely use Mentimeter and it also offers many plans, features and tools for enterprises to use in their meetings, virtual seminars or training sessions. Despite a slight lack of display flexibility, Mentimeter is still a go-to for many professionals, trainers and employers.

Here are 6 reasons why  Mentimeter  is one of the best Q&A apps…

Stop questions

Presenters may stop questions during the Q&A sessions.

2-screen preview (Beta)

Preview presenter's and participants' screens at the same time.

Hide inappropriate words in questions submitted by participants.

Advanced layouts (Beta)

Customise Q&A slide layouts how you like.

• Heading & meta description customisation
• Allow audience to see each other’s questions
• Show results on all slides
• Add slide images
• Audience comments

Cons of Mentimeter

Lack of display options – There are only 2 question categories on the presenter’s screen – questions and answered , but confusingly, 2 different categories on participants’ screens – top questions and recent . Presenters can only display 1 question at one time on their screens, and they can’t pin, highlight or zoom in on the questions.

#4 – Vevox

Vevox is considered one of the most dynamic anonymous questions websites. It’s a highly rated polling and Q&A platform with multiple features and integrations to bridge the gap between presenters and their audiences.

This helpful tool helps users collect data and get instant feedback and engagement. It’s quick and easy to use, suitable for businesses and educational institutions. Besides audience Q&A, Vevox offers many exciting features such as surveys, quizzes and word clouds.

Vevox integrates with many other apps, bringing more convenience to its users. Its simple, elegant design could be another plus point for Vevox in the eyes of trainers, professionals or employers when considering which platform to use.

Compared to other platforms, the features Vevox provides are not that varied, although the live polling and Q&A features are still in development. Many of its Q&A features aren’t available on the free plan, but of course, there are some basic, necessary ones to use. In virtual meetings, participants can join and send questions easily with their phones by using an ID or scanning the QR code, just like many other platforms.

Here are 6 reasons why  Vevox  is one of the best Q&A apps…

Message board

Let participants send live messages to each other during the presentation.

Theme customisation

Presenters can customise themes even in presenter view. Users with free plans can only choose themes from the library.

Let participants upvote others' questions. The most liked questions are in the most liked category.

Slide customisation (paid plans)

Presenters can customise the background, heading and description of the Q&A slide.

Question sorting

Questions are in 2 categories - most liked and most recent .

Question moderation (paid plans)

Other features.

Report export (paid plans)

Cons of Vevox

• Lack of features – No presenter notes or participant view mode to test the session before presenting. Also a lot of features are missing from the free plan.
• Lack of display options – There are only 2 question categories and presenters can’t pin, highlight or zoom in on the questions.

#5 – Pigeonhole Live

Launched in 2010, Pigeonhole Live fosters interaction between presenters and participants in online meetings. It’s not only one of the best Q&A apps but also an audience interaction tool using live Q&A, polls, chat, surveys and more to enable excellent communication.

Pigeonhole Live’s features can facilitate many different session formats with specific demands. It opens conversations in conferences, town halls, workshops, webinars, and businesses of all sizes.

Something unique about Pigeonhole Live is that it doesn’t work in the classic presentation format like the 4 platforms above. You work in ‘sessions’ , that can be turned off and on by the event hosts. In an event, there can be admin and other moderators with different roles to better manage the Q&A sessions.

Here are 6 reasons why  Pigeonhole Live  is one of the best Q&A apps…

Send questions in advance

Allow participants to send questions before the Q&A even starts.

Project questions

Display the questions that presenters are addressing on the screens.

Question upvoting (paid plans)

Let participants upvote others' questions. The most liked questions are in the top voted category.

Written answer

Presenters can respond with text answers..

View customisation (paid plans)

Customise theme, colours, logos and more for the Q&A sessions.

Participants' comments

Participants can add comments below questions to share their opinions and ask follow-up questions.

• Allow anonymous questions
• Archive questions
• Announcements
• Star/mark questions as answered
• Customise the agenda display on the audience web app

Cons of Pigeonhole Live

• Not too user-friendly – Although the website is simple, there are too many steps and modes, which is quite hard to figure out for first time users.
• Lack of layout customisation.

Website where you can ask questions anonymously?

There are several websites where you can ask questions anonymously, including Quora, Reddit, Ask.fm, Curious Cat and Whisper.

Is there a tool to check presenters for free?

If you’re looking for a tool to check the availability of presenters for free, there isn’t a specific tool dedicated solely to that purpose. Therefore, you should use a professional social media platform, like LinkedIn to connect with the right presenters!

What is the free Q&A app for events?

AhaSlides is a free interactive presentation software for hosting live Q&A sessions in events, meetings, classrooms, and many more.

A lifelong learner, a traveller and content creator eager to explore the best of both worlds: the real and virtual one full of interactive activities with AhaSlides.

More from AhaSlides

Insert a form or quiz into PowerPoint

Tip:  Learn more  about Microsoft Forms or get started  right away and create a survey , quiz, or poll. Want more advanced branding, question types, and data analysis? Try Dynamics 365 Customer Voice .

You can create a new form or quiz in Microsoft Forms and insert it into your PowerPoint presentation.

Inserting a form is only available to Office 365 Education and Microsoft 365 Apps for business customers with version 1807 (Build 16.0.10711.20012) or later of PowerPoint for Microsoft 365 on a PC.

People responding to a form or quiz can use PowerPoint on a PC, macOS, or the web.

Create a new form or quiz

Sign in to Microsoft 365 with your school or work credentials.

Open your PowerPoint presentation and choose the slide in which you want to insert a form or quiz.

On the Insert tab, select Forms .

If you don't see Forms  on the Insert tab, your administrator may have turned this feature off for your organization. Contact your admin to turn on the Forms feature in PowerPoint for your organization.

Note for admins : If you haven't deployed Office add-ins  for your organization, you can still enable usage of the Forms feature in PowerPoint. Learn more .

Important:  If you're unable to insert a form, make sure your web add-ins aren't disabled. In PowerPoint, select Files > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings . In the Trust Center dialog box, choose Trusted Add-in Catalogs . Under Use these settings to manage your web add-in catalogs , uncheck both, Don't allow any web add-ins to start and Don't allow web add-ins from the Office Store to start .

A Forms panel will open and dock on the right side of your PowerPoint presentation.

Under My forms, click +New Form or +New Quiz to begin creating a form or quiz.

A new window will open with a blank form and default title ("Untitled form"). Learn more about how to create a form or create a quiz .

When you're done creating your form or quiz, it will be embedded in your PowerPoint slide and appear at the top of your My forms list under the +New Form and +New Quiz buttons.

Insert an existing form or quiz

Find the form or quiz you want to insert into your slide under My forms in the panel.

Hover over the title of the form or quiz and click Insert .

You can also select Edit if you have more changes to make or want to review results of the form or quiz.

Your form or quiz is now embedded in your PowerPoint slide.

Note:  If you try to insert a form into your slide, but see the error message,  Office 365 has been configured to prevent individual acquisition and execution of Office Store Add-ins , reach out to your admin to turn on the feature. Admins can sign in to https://admin.microsoft.com , and then click Settings > Settings > User owned apps and services . For the option, Let users access the Office store , your admin can check it to specifically enable access to the Forms add-in, which will allow people in your organization to insert a form into PowerPoint. Please be aware that it may take a few hours for the change to take effect. Learn more .

Important:  In PowerPoint for the web, any Forms content added to a slide can't be printed successfully from there. In order to print such content, you would need to switch to the PowerPoint desktop app on Windows or macOS and print the slide from there.

Share to collect responses

Share your PowerPoint slides with others via email, OneNote, Teams, and other Office applications. Receivers of your slides can then fill out the form and submit responses without leaving PowerPoint.

Learn more about how to share your PowerPoint presentation with others . You can also share a single PowerPoint slide with someone else .

Check the responses to your form

To see the responses to your form or quiz, sign in to your Microsoft 365 account at https://forms.office.com/ . Open the appropriate form from your My forms page, and then select the Responses tab at the top of the page. Learn more .

Feedback for Microsoft Forms

Create a form with Microsoft Forms

Create a quiz with Microsoft Forms

Frequently asked questions about Microsoft Forms

Use Microsoft Forms in your favorite Microsoft 365 apps

Need more help?

Want more options.

Explore subscription benefits, browse training courses, learn how to secure your device, and more.

Microsoft 365 subscription benefits

Microsoft 365 training

Microsoft security

Accessibility center

Communities help you ask and answer questions, give feedback, and hear from experts with rich knowledge.

Ask the Microsoft Community

Microsoft Tech Community

Windows Insiders

Microsoft 365 Insiders

Was this information helpful?

Thank you for your feedback.

Blog > The Right Way to do a Question Slide in your PowerPoint Presentation

The Right Way to do a Question Slide in your PowerPoint Presentation

01.20.20   •  #powerpointtips #presentation #engagement.

You just finished your presentation. You’re asking your audience if there are any questions. Nobody, or one or two people at best raise their hands, but you’re quite sure that your audience actually has a lot more to ask. Does that sound familiar?

If it does (which is likely, as many presenters experience that phenomenon), you’re in the right place. Some may take the silence after asking the audience if there are any questions personal, as if they are not a good enough speaker or as if they just held a terrible presentation. Others may be happy and think that they explained everything so well that there are no more questions to ask. In reality, probably none of those is the case. It all comes down to the way you ask questions – and here’s how to ask them (well – first here’s how not to ask them!)

How not to ask Questions

The absolute worst, but sadly often used method to ask your audience about any questions they have is the “Any Questions?” – Slide, which is, like you may guess from the name, a simple slide at the end of the presentation with the words “Questions?” or “Any Questions?” on it. Why is it so bad? Well, first of all, it’s extremely unspecific. It’s likely to overwhelm your attendees. They will try to force their brains to think of something to ask, but due to the amount of information you just gave them in your presentation often can’t think of anything. Another factor is the fear of public speaking many have. There may be someone in the audience who wants to ask a question, but is too shy to raise their hand and actually ask it – often out of fear of asking a “stupid” question.

How to ask Questions (in order to get Questions)

So here is what you came for: Better ways to get your audience to talk to you and actually ask about what they would like to know.

1. Use a Q&A Tool

Let your audience ask questions via their smartphones or notebooks – even anonymously – and be sure no one ever holds back any questions. Q&A tools such as SlideLizard are integrated seamlessly to PowerPoint. Your attendees connect their devices with your presentation and are then able to send in as many questions as they want by simply typing them into their phones. The question will arrive directly at your presenter’s view. You’ll see it immediately after it has been asked. The huge advantage is that you can answer the questions even during the presentation, or wait until after you’ve finished. Also, be sure to invite your audience at the beginning to ask any questions they have via the Q&A tool, and inform them about when you will answer them.

2. Ask specific questions

We recommend leaving out the “Any Questions?” slide at the end, but if you still insist on using something similar, this is the way to go. It is an insanely easy tip, but it has great impact. Instead of just asking if there are any questions, you just assume there are some and ask your own questions accordingly. Here are some good examples:

• What was unclear?
• What else would you like to know?
• What would you like to know more about?
• What was missing in my presentation?
• What was surprising for you?
• What was new to you?
• What did you find most interesting?

Notice how none of these questions can be answered with “Yes” or “No”. That is key to getting your audience to actually reflect on the input and talk. Also, don’t fill your slides with all of these reflective questions, as that may again overwhelm the audience. Decide what you would like to know and use 1 – 3 of the prompts.

3. Do a Poll/Quiz at the end

Even though this is not a conventional way of a Q&A session, it will still show you and your audience whether they have understood what you just talked about or not. Create a little trivia quiz and test your audience. By looking at the result of each individual question, you’ll see if you have to explain something again or if the majority already got it. For this method, you can again use tools like SlideLizard , that have an integrated poll function where you can analyze the results even after the presentation is done. Of course, you can also combine this third method with one of the previous ones.

Get Inspired

A good beginning and ending are essential for giving an awesome presentation – similar to a book. The beginning makes you want to keep on reading, and the ending makes it memorable. If you want to get some inspiration and learn innovative new ways for creating title and final slides, check out this guide: 10 creative ideas for title and end slides .

Related articles

About the author.

Pia Lehner-Mittermaier

Pia works in Marketing as a graphic designer and writer at SlideLizard. She uses her vivid imagination and creativity to produce good content.

Get 1 Month for free!

Do you want to make your presentations more interactive.

With SlideLizard you can engage your audience with live polls, questions and feedback . Directly within your PowerPoint Presentation. Learn more

Top blog articles More posts

15 Creative Ideas to make your virtual Christmas Party successful

Caribbean - Free PowerPoint Template

Get started with Live Polls, Q&A and slides

for your PowerPoint Presentations

The big SlideLizard presentation glossary

Impromptu speech.

A speech that is given without any preparation, notes, or cards, is called an impromptu speech. It is often delivered at private events (e.g., weddings or birthdays) or for training presentation skills.

Extemporaneous Speech

An extemporaneous speech is a speech that involves little preparation, as the speaker may use notes or cards to give his talk. It is important that speakers will still use their own words and talk naturally. .

Declamation Speech

A declamation speech describes the re-giving of an important speech that has been given in the past. It is usually given with a lot of emotion and passion.

.pptm file extension

A .pptm file is a macro-enabled presentation created by MS PowerPoint which contains slides with layout, images, texts and embedded macros.

Be the first to know!

The latest SlideLizard news, articles, and resources, sent straight to your inbox.

- or follow us on -

We use cookies to personalise content and analyse traffic to our website. You can choose to accept only cookies that are necessary for the website to function or to also allow tracking cookies. For more information, please see our privacy policy .

Cookie Settings

Necessary cookies are required for the proper functioning of the website. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information about the number of visitors, etc.

Add interactive quizzes to your PowerPoint

Engage your students with interactive quizzes in PowerPoint.

The easiest way to run interactive quizzes in PowerPoint.

Effortlessly turn your existing slides into interactive quizzes.

8 question types

Detailed insights, interactive quizzes for every occasion.

Quickly turn your slides into captivating learning experiences with the wide range of interactive quiz activities.

Turn slides into Multiple Choice questions

Evaluate student understanding with a familiar question type right inside PowerPoint. Whether used as a formative assessment or an icebreaker activity - there is fun with ClassPoint’s MCQ!

Run interactive Word Cloud in PowerPoint

Watch your students’ ideas, opinions, thoughts, feelings & more appear right inside your PowerPoint during your presentation. Watch student’s words dance around your screen.

See the depth of student understanding with Short Answer

Let students compose answers in written form by asking them a ClassPoint Short Answer question right on your PowerPoint slide. Ask each and every student to participate in your short-form writing activity by providing facts, elaborating on concepts, or expressing their own thoughts, attitudes, or opinions.

Turn your slide into a student drawing activity in class!

Design drawing activities as slides and send it directly to students’ devices for them to draw on. Let students create annotations with user-friendly inking tools to better enhance activity experience. Once done, students can simply hit submit to send their annotated slide back as response which gives way for immediate feedback.

Get participants to submit images/photos as response

Image Upload is an activity that invites all students to upload an image right to a teacher’s presentation! Open up doors to student creativity and invite students to learn, share, and practice recall through multimedia. Plus, because of its visual and scannable nature, Image Upload can be a quick form of assessment for teachers and an opportunity for visual learning for students!

Out with the guessing game, in with Fill in the Blanks

Unlike traditional Fill in the Blanks on pen and paper, ClassPoint’s Fill in the Blanks allows teachers to have participants submit single word answers right from PowerPoint. Teachers are not only able to maximize full participation, but also get to automatically grade submissions with every correct answer set for each question.

An audio recording activity in PowerPoint

ClassPoint’s Audio Record is an activity in PowerPoint where participants get to share an audio recording of their voice. Prompt them with a question and get participants to share their ideas through verbal communication instead of written.

Video sharing made king even in the classroom

Mimic video sharing platforms and turn your PowerPoint presentation into one! Let students get imaginative by letting them share video responses and watch each one live during a class.

Live Q & A

Run inclusive Q & A sessions

Let your participants ask questions from any device and upvote their favorite ones.

How ClassPoint Quiz works

Using ClassPoint quiz is as easy as ABC

Follow the next steps to install ClassPoint and get started.

Step 1. Add quiz button to slide

Step 2. go to slide show mode, step 3. collect responses.

No prepare? No problem!

Open Quick Poll on the spot and start collecting feedback or information from your audience any time during presentations.

Quick Poll is my secret weapon in class. It allows me to instantly gauge my students’ understanding and adjust my lessons in real-time. The simplicity and speed with which I can create and share polls make it an indispensable tool in my classroom. It’s not just a poll; it’s a powerful teaching ally.

Liven up the competition.

Fuel an element of competition in the classroom by transforming your Multiple Choice question slides into rounds of interactive quizzes right inside PowerPoint.

Don't just stop at quiz, go further with more tools and insights.

ClassPoint is more than just a quiz tool. It is a comprehensive platform that provides a suite of tools and insights to help you deliver engaging and effective lessons.

Live submission status.

Who submitted what

Power search

Insert as slide

Auto start quiz

Auto close submission

Anonymous submission

On/off music

Share activity

A quick overview

How to do interactive quiz in PowerPoint

Learn how to create interactive quizzes in PowerPoint with ClassPoint.

Frequently asked questions

Supercharge your powerpoint. start today..

500,000+ people like you use ClassPoint to boost student engagement in PowerPoint presentations.

50+ Questions to Generate Audience Participation

When it comes to presentations, one of the most important things you can do is get your audience engaged and participating. This can be a challenge, but with the right questions, it can be easy!

In this post, we will provide you with over 50 different questions you can use in your next presentation. These questions are broken down into different types, so you can easily find the ones that will work best for your needs, as well as slide deck recs for each type of question.

Introduction Questions

Using questions in an introduction to a meeting or presentation sets the tone for the rest of your time together. These questions can also give the speaker an idea of the expectations and wants of those in the audience.

While asking some of these questions to a group can quickly devolve into side conversations or serve as distractions, picking one or two of them and having the group answer on their phones can provide real insight. We suggest using the Meeting Kickoff slide deck to quickly ask the questions, get the audience participating, and set the tone for the rest of the meeting.

1. Who here has ever been to a meeting where they were completely lost within the first five minutes?

2. How many of you have some knowledge about the topic we're discussing today?

3. What is something you're hoping to come away with after this presentation?

4. What are you tired of hearing about on this topic?

5. What motivates you most to learn about this topic?

6. What can I do to make this presentation valuable to you?

7. If you aren't here due to work obligations, would you still want to be here?

8. How do you prefer to consume information on this topic?

9. Do you prefer presentations/meetings in-person or virtually?

10. What would help you focus for the rest of this presentation?

Word Cloud Questions

Another fantastic way to gauge what your audience feels or thinks about certain topics (while keeping them engaged and entertained) is through the use of word clouds. Unlike open-ended questions, word clouds allow an audience to answer a prompt and give a visual representation to the group on which answer is the most prevalent.

Word clouds are an excellent way to draw a group back in mid-meeting and gauge the mindset of your audience. Slides with Friends has a fantastic Word Cloud Game you can put together in a few moments to boost the participation in your next presentation.

1. How are you feeling right now?

2. Who has had the biggest influence on your life?

3. What person in our industry has had the biggest impact on your career?

4. What's something you're worried about professionally today?

5. What's something you're excited about professionally today?

6. What's one of the best ideas our company/group has come up with?

7. How would you describe our last month in one word?

Ice Breaker Questions

If you’re hosting a meeting with a smaller group that’s already comfortable with each other, meeting icebreakers can loosen tongues and generate conversation. These questions are also a bit more fun, perfect for easing into a heavier presentation.

Use our Meeting Icebreaker slide deck to start your meetings with a little bit of sharing and laughter. Setting the tone at the beginning of your meeting will keep the audience engaged throughout.

1. What’s your favorite tradition or holiday?

2. What fictional world or place would you like to visit?

3. What is your favorite time of the day? Why?

4. What's one routine that has changed how you work?

5. What's something about the co-worker/person next to you that you appreciate?

6. What's your biggest non-work goal right now?

7. What's something you're willing to share that we don't know about you?

This or That Questions

With larger groups, it can be even more difficult to grab and keep everyone’s attention, much less get the group to participate. The key to using questions with larger audiences is to keep the answers simple and easy to share.

One of our favorite ways of keeping an audience engaged with questions is with this or that questions. Or, as we call them at Slides with Friends, tea vs coffee questions. Our slide deck Tea vs Coffee was created to make engaging with big groups easier, but still fun.

1. Coffee or tea?

2. Hot or cold climate?

3. Pager or fax machine?

4. Train or plane?

5. Staycation or vacation?

6. Netflix or Amazon Prime?

7. Mountains or beach?

8. Macs or PCs?

9. Beer or wine?

10. Work from home or in the office?

Discussion Questions

Sometimes to generate audience participation, you need to let them do the talking. This is the concept that inspired the discussion questions we’ve put together. What are things people want to talk about while still staying on topic? What can you ask to get the group involved and engaged without derailing the purpose of the gathering?

With the Brainstorming Session Template slide deck, you can present your questions to the group and either have them answer aloud or through their phones. The key here is taking a step back and letting them lead the conversation.

1. What is the best advice you've ever gotten about your career?

2. What was your first job? How has it influenced your career now?

3. How have you seen your industry change in the past 10 years?

4. What is your favorite thing about your job?

5. What is the hardest thing about your job?

6. What are some of the biggest challenges you see in your industry right now?

7. What's one thing you wish was more efficient about your job?

8. What small change can we make today that will shift how we work long-term?

Exit Questions

We’d all love to think every single one of our presentations was a slam dunk, but we know that’s not true. One way to finish up strong and with appreciated audience participation is to ask how you did.

Use the questions below in our Project Wrap Up slide deck to find out how you did and what you can change for the next time you meet. The best way to improve audience participation is to give the group what they want. These questions will help you figure out what that ‘want’ is.

1. What was your favorite part of the presentation?

2. What are you going to do with what you learned today?

3. Who is going to help you implement what you learned today?

4. When are you going to start using what you learned today?

5. What's your plan for continuing to learn about this topic?

6. How would you rate the overall quality of the presentation?

7. What could we have done better?

8. Was the pace too fast, too slow, or just right?

9. Did you feel like you learned something new?

Silly Questions

And finally, just for the fun of it, here are a few of our favorite silly questions to ask the crew at your next Happy Hour Hang . Sure, these questions might devolve into laughter, but that still counts as participation!

1. How would you describe your job to a preschooler?

2. What would your entrance song be if you were coming out on stage?

3. What place in time do you think you'd fit in the most?

4. What do you think is the most overrated show or movie right now?

5. What fictional team (X-Men, Avengers, Justice League) is the best?

Subscribe for more articles like this

Try slides with friends for free.

The easiest way to host meetings your team will love

Engagement delivered to your inbox

We'll email you 1-2x per month with brand new, ready-to-run events and ideas. Subscribe to stay ahead of the curve and keep your lessons, meetings, and events fresh and engaging.

Presentations that move audiences

Refine, enhance, and tailor your content quicker than ever before.

Prezi is good for business

Keep teams engaged and customers asking for more

Prezi is smart for education

Make lessons more exciting and easier to remember

Millions of people — from students to CEOs — use Prezi to grab attention, stand out, and capture imaginations

The most engaging presentations happen on Prezi

Create with confidence

Professionally designed templates.

Choose from hundreds of modern, beautifully made templates.

Millions of reusable presentations

Focus on your own creativity and build off, remix, and reuse presentations from our extensive content library.

Real creative freedom

Open canvas.

Create, organize, and move freely on an open canvas. Create seamless presentations without the restrictions of linear slides.

Ready-made asset libraries

Choose from millions of images, stickers, GIFs, and icons from Unsplash and Giphy.

A presentation that works for you

Present in-person.

Have the confidence to deliver a memorable presentation with presenter notes and downloadable presentations.

Present over video conference

Keep your audience engaged by putting yourself in the center of your presentation.

Your own ideas, ready to present faster

Prezi AI is your new creative partner. Save time, amplify your ideas, and elevate your presentations.

The specialists on visual storytelling since 2009

From TED talks to classrooms. In every country across the world. Prezi has been a trusted presentation partner for over 15 years.

*independent Harvard study of Prezi vs. PowerPoint

See why our customers love us

Prezi is consistently awarded and ranks as the G2 leader across industries based on hundreds of glowing customer reviews.

Prezi powers the best presenters to do their best presentations

• SUGGESTED TOPICS
• The Magazine
• Newsletters
• Managing Yourself
• Managing Teams
• Work-life Balance
• The Big Idea
• Data & Visuals
• Reading Lists
• Case Selections
• HBR Learning
• Topic Feeds
• Account Settings
• Email Preferences

How to Make a “Good” Presentation “Great”

• Guy Kawasaki

Remember: Less is more.

A strong presentation is so much more than information pasted onto a series of slides with fancy backgrounds. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others. Here are some unique elements that make a presentation stand out.

• Fonts: Sans Serif fonts such as Helvetica or Arial are preferred for their clean lines, which make them easy to digest at various sizes and distances. Limit the number of font styles to two: one for headings and another for body text, to avoid visual confusion or distractions.
• Colors: Colors can evoke emotions and highlight critical points, but their overuse can lead to a cluttered and confusing presentation. A limited palette of two to three main colors, complemented by a simple background, can help you draw attention to key elements without overwhelming the audience.
• Pictures: Pictures can communicate complex ideas quickly and memorably but choosing the right images is key. Images or pictures should be big (perhaps 20-25% of the page), bold, and have a clear purpose that complements the slide’s text.
• Layout: Don’t overcrowd your slides with too much information. When in doubt, adhere to the principle of simplicity, and aim for a clean and uncluttered layout with plenty of white space around text and images. Think phrases and bullets, not sentences.

As an intern or early career professional, chances are that you’ll be tasked with making or giving a presentation in the near future. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others.

• Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist at Canva and was the former chief evangelist at Apple. Guy is the author of 16 books including Think Remarkable : 9 Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a Difference.

Partner Center

160 Questions to Ask After a Presentation

Asking questions after a presentation is not just about seeking clarity on what was discussed. It’s a golden opportunity to delve deeper, engage with the speaker, and enhance your understanding of the subject matter. But knowing which questions to ask isn’t always straightforward.

In this piece, we’re about to break down the art of crafting impactful questions post-presentation that will not only benefit you but also add value to the entire audience’s experience.

Table of Contents

Questions to Ask After a Presentation for Feedback

Questions to ask after a presentation interview, questions to ask students after a presentation, questions to ask after a research presentation, questions to ask after a business presentation, questions to ask after a marketing presentation, questions to ask after a book presentation, reflection questions to ask after a presentation, frequently asked questions, final thoughts.

• Can you summarize the key points of the presentation?
• What aspect of the presentation did you find most engaging?
• Were there any areas that were unclear or confusing? If so, what were they?
• How would you rate the overall organization and flow of the presentation?
• Did the visual aids (such as slides or charts) enhance your understanding of the topic? Why or why not?
• Did the presenter maintain good eye contact and use body language effectively?
• Was the presenter’s tone and pace suitable for the content and audience?
• Were there any statistics or facts presented that stood out to you? Why?
• Did the presenter address potential counter-arguments or opposing views adequately?
• Were the objectives of the presentation clearly stated and met?
• How well did the presenter handle questions or interruptions during the presentation?
• Was there anything in the presentation that seemed unnecessary or redundant?
• What would you suggest to improve the presentation for future audiences?
• How did the presentation change or influence your thinking about the subject?
• Did the presentation feel tailored to the audience’s knowledge and interest level?
• Was there a clear and compelling call to action or concluding statement?
• Did the presentation feel too short, too long, or just the right length?
• What was your overall impression of the presenter’s credibility and expertise on the subject?
• How would you rate the relevance and importance of the topic to the audience?
• Can you identify any biases or assumptions in the presentation that may have influenced the message?
• How did you determine what content to include in your presentation?
• Can you explain the rationale behind the structure and flow of your presentation?
• What challenges did you face while preparing this presentation, and how did you overcome them?
• Were there any points in the presentation where you felt you could have elaborated more or less? Why?
• How did you decide on the visual elements and design of your presentation?
• Can you describe your intended audience and how you tailored the content to engage them?
• How did you ensure that the information presented was accurate and up-to-date?
• Were there any counter-arguments or opposing views on this topic that you considered including?
• How would you adapt this presentation for a different audience or context?
• How do you handle unexpected questions or interruptions during a presentation?
• Can you give an example of how you’ve handled negative feedback on a presentation in the past?
• How do you measure the success of a presentation? What metrics or feedback do you seek?
• What techniques do you use to engage an audience that may not be familiar with the topic?
• How do you balance the need to entertain and inform in a presentation?
• How do you prioritize information when you have a limited time to present?
• What strategies do you employ to ensure that your main points are memorable?
• How do you deal with nerves or anxiety before or during a presentation?
• Can you describe a situation where a presentation did not go as planned and how you handled it?
• How do you keep up with the latest trends and best practices in presenting?
• Is there anything you would change about this presentation if you were to do it again?
• How did you feel about the presentation? Were you confident or nervous, and why?
• What was the main message or goal of your presentation, and do you think you achieved it?
• How did you decide on the structure of your presentation?
• What research methods did you use to gather information for this presentation?
• Were there any challenges you encountered while preparing or presenting, and how did you address them?
• How did you ensure that your visual aids or multimedia elements supported your key points?
• What part of the presentation are you most proud of, and why?
• Were there any areas where you felt uncertain or that you would like to improve upon for next time?
• How did you tailor your presentation to fit the knowledge level and interest of your audience?
• What techniques did you use to engage the audience, and how do you think they worked?
• How did you practice your presentation, and what adjustments did you make as a result?
• Did you feel the time allotted for your presentation was sufficient? Why or why not?
• How did you decide what to emphasize or de-emphasize in your presentation?
• What feedback did you receive from peers during the preparation, and how did you incorporate it?
• Did you have a clear conclusion or call to action, and why did you choose it?
• How do you think your presentation style affects the way your audience receives your message?
• What would you do differently if you were to present this topic again?
• Can you reflect on a piece of feedback or a question from the audience that made you think?
• How has this presentation helped you better understand the subject matter?
• How will the skills and insights gained from this presentation experience benefit you in the future?
• Can you elaborate on the research question and what prompted you to investigate this topic?
• How did you choose the methodology for this research, and why was it the most suitable approach?
• Can you discuss any limitations or constraints within your research design and how they might have affected the results?
• How do your findings align or contrast with existing literature or previous research in this field?
• Were there any unexpected findings, and if so, how do you interpret them?
• How did you ensure the reliability and validity of your data?
• Can you discuss the ethical considerations involved in your research, and how were they addressed?
• What are the practical implications of your findings for practitioners in the field?
• How might your research contribute to theoretical development within this discipline?
• What recommendations do you have for future research based on your findings?
• Can you provide more details about your sample size and selection process?
• How did you handle missing or inconsistent data within your research?
• Were there any biases that could have influenced the results, and how were they mitigated?
• How do you plan to disseminate these findings within the academic community or to the broader public?
• Can you discuss the significance of your research within a broader social, economic, or cultural context?
• What feedback have you received from peers or advisors on this research, and how has it shaped your work?
• How does your research fit into your long-term academic or professional goals?
• Were there any particular challenges in conveying complex research findings to a general audience, and how did you address them?
• How does this research presentation fit into the larger project or research agenda, if applicable?
• Can you provide more insight into the interdisciplinary aspects of your research, if any, and how they contributed to the depth or breadth of understanding?
• Can you elaborate on the primary objectives and expected outcomes of this business initiative?
• How does this strategy align with the overall mission and vision of the company?
• What are the key performance indicators (KPIs) that you’ll be monitoring to gauge success?
• Can you discuss the risks associated with this plan, and how have you prepared to mitigate them?
• How does this proposal fit within the current market landscape, and what sets it apart from competitors?
• What are the potential financial implications of this plan, including both investments and projected returns?
• Can you provide more detail about the timeline and milestones for implementation?
• What internal and external resources will be required, and how have you planned to allocate them?
• How did you gather and analyze the data presented, and how does it support your conclusions?
• How does this proposal take into account regulatory compliance and ethical considerations?
• What are the potential challenges or roadblocks, and what strategies are in place to overcome them?
• Can you explain how this initiative aligns with or affects other ongoing projects or departments within the company?
• How will this plan impact stakeholders, and how have their interests and concerns been addressed?
• What contingency plans are in place if the initial strategy doesn’t achieve the desired results?
• How will success be communicated and celebrated within the organization?
• What opportunities for collaboration or partnership with other organizations exist within this plan?
• How does this proposal consider sustainability and the potential long-term impact on the environment and community?
• How have you incorporated feedback or lessons learned from previous similar initiatives?
• What are the key takeaways you’d like us to remember from this presentation?
• How can we get involved or support this initiative moving forward?
• Can you elaborate on the target audience for this marketing campaign, and how were they identified?
• What are the main objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs) for this campaign?
• How does this marketing strategy align with the overall brand values and business goals?
• What channels will be utilized, and why were they chosen for this particular campaign?
• Can you discuss the expected return on investment (ROI) and how it will be measured?
• What are the creative concepts driving this campaign, and how do they resonate with the target audience?
• How does this campaign consider the competitive landscape, and what sets it apart from competitors’ efforts?
• What are the potential risks or challenges with this marketing plan, and how will they be mitigated?
• Can you provide more details about the budget allocation across different marketing channels and activities?
• How have customer insights or feedback been integrated into the campaign strategy?
• What contingency plans are in place if certain elements of the campaign do not perform as expected?
• How will this marketing initiative be integrated with other departments or business functions, such as sales or customer service?
• How does this campaign consider sustainability or social responsibility, if at all?
• What tools or technologies will be used to execute and monitor this campaign?
• Can you discuss the timeline and key milestones for the launch and ongoing management of the campaign?
• How will the success of this campaign be communicated both internally and externally?
• How does this marketing strategy consider potential regulatory or compliance issues?
• How will the campaign be adapted or customized for different markets or segments, if applicable?
• What lessons from previous campaigns were applied in the development of this strategy?
• How can we, as a team or as individuals, support the successful implementation of this marketing plan?
• What inspired the main theme or concept of the book?
• Can you describe the intended audience for this book, and why they would find it appealing?
• How did the characters’ development contribute to the overall message of the book?
• What research was conducted (if any) to ensure the authenticity of the setting, characters, or events?
• Were there any challenges or ethical considerations in writing or presenting this book?
• How does this book fit into the current literary landscape or genre? What sets it apart?
• What do you believe readers will find most engaging or thought-provoking about this book?
• Can you discuss any symbolic elements or literary devices used in the book and their significance?
• How does the book’s structure (e.g., point of view, chronological order) contribute to its impact?
• What were the emotional highs and lows during the writing or reading of this book, and how do they reflect in the story?
• How does the book address or reflect contemporary social, cultural, or political issues?
• Were there any parts of the book that were particularly difficult or rewarding to write or read?
• How does this book relate to the author’s previous works or the evolution of their writing style?
• What feedback or responses have been received from readers, critics, or peers, and how have they influenced the presentation?
• What are the main takeaways or lessons you hope readers will gain from this book?
• How might this book be used in educational settings, and what age group or courses would it be suitable for?
• Can you discuss the process of editing, publishing, or marketing the book, if applicable?
• How does the book’s cover art or design reflect its content or attract its target readership?
• Are there plans for a sequel, adaptation, or related works in the future?
• How can readers stay engaged with the author or the book’s community, such as through social media, book clubs, or events?
• How do you feel the presentation went overall, and why?
• What part of the presentation are you most proud of, and what made it successful?
• Were there any moments where you felt challenged or uncertain? How did you handle those moments?
• How did you perceive the audience’s engagement and reaction? Were there any surprises?
• What feedback have you received from others, and how does it align with your self-assessment?
• Were there any technical difficulties or unexpected obstacles, and how were they addressed?
• How well did you manage your time during the presentation? Were there areas that needed more or less focus?
• How did you feel before the presentation, and how did those feelings change throughout?
• What strategies did you use to connect with the audience, and how effective were they?
• Were there any points that you felt were misunderstood or could have been communicated more clearly?
• How did the preparation process contribute to the overall success or challenges of the presentation?
• What did you learn about yourself as a communicator or presenter through this experience?
• Were there any ethical considerations in the content or delivery of the presentation, and how were they handled?
• How does this presentation align with your long-term goals or professional development?
• How would you approach this presentation differently if you had to do it again?
• How has this presentation affected your confidence or skills in public speaking or presenting?
• What resources or support would have enhanced your preparation or performance?
• How will you apply what you’ve learned from this presentation to future projects or presentations?
• How did your understanding of the topic change or deepen through the process of preparing and presenting?
• What steps will you take to continue improving or building on the skills demonstrated in this presentation?

What if I disagree with a point made during the presentation?

It’s important to frame disagreement in a constructive and respectful way. You might say, “ I found your point on X intriguing. From a different perspective, could Y also be considered…? ” This opens up a dialogue without dismissing the presenter’s viewpoint.

How can I formulate my questions to encourage a more detailed answer?

Use open-ended questions that start with “ how ,” “ why, ” or “ could you explain… ” as these require more than a yes or no answer and encourage the presenter to provide depth. For example, “ Could you explain the process behind your research findings in more detail? “

By asking insightful questions, you’re not only cementing your understanding of the material presented but also opening doors to further knowledge and collaboration. Remember, the quality of your questions reflects the depth of your engagement and willingness to learn.

So, the next time you find yourself in the audience, seize the opportunity to ask meaningful questions and watch as simple presentations transform into dialogues that inspire and illuminate.

How useful was this post?

Click on a star to rate it!

As you found this post useful...

Share it on social media!

We are sorry that this post was not useful for you!

Let us improve this post!

Tell us how we can improve this post?

Bea Mariel Saulo

Bea is an editor and writer with a passion for literature and self-improvement. Her ability to combine these two interests enables her to write informative and thought-provoking articles that positively impact society. She enjoys reading stories and listening to music in her spare time.

Higher Order Thinking Questions

Great distractors, high speed generation, thematic analysis.

• Mobile Forms
• INTEGRATIONS
• See 100+ integrations
• FEATURED INTEGRATIONS
• See more Integrations
• See more CRM Integrations

• See more Storage Integrations
• See more Payment Integrations

• See more Email Integrations
• Jotform Teams
• Enterprise Mobile
• Prefill Forms
• HIPAA Forms
• Secure Forms
• Assign Forms
• Online Payments
• See more features
• Multiple Users
• Admin Console
• White Labeling
• See more Enterprise Features
• Contact Sales
• Contact Support
• Help Center
• Jotform Books
• Jotform Academy

Get a dedicated support team with Jotform Enterprise.

Apply to Jotform Enterprise for a dedicated support team.

• Sign Up for Free
• Presentation Survey

More templates like this

Event Satisfaction Survey Form

If you want to improve your upcoming event, you can get suggestions from participants by using this event satisfaction survey template. This sample feedback form allows gathering overall satisfaction by categorizing the event services. These categories are location, content, price, speakers, organization.If you are looking for creating your own survey from scratch, you can get started with the survey maker now for free!

Online Interview Questionnaire Form

An online interview questionnaire form is used by organizations to help them get important information from their interviewees. Whether you’re an insurance company, a hospital, or a company that hires individuals in various roles, use this form to gather more information from applicants applying to jobs. This Online Interview Questionnaire Form is also an additional way to confirm the information you have received from your applicants. Just customize the template, embed the form on your website, and watch as applicants send you the information you need.This online interview questionnaire form allows you to select the responses you need, and then convert the responses into easily downloadable or printable PDFs. If you’d like to automate the questions or the responses, you can use Jotform’s integration options with 100+ other powerful apps, including Google Drive, Dropbox, and Slack. You can also personalize your online interview questionnaire form to fit your business’s branding. Add your logo, change the background, or add more form fields to your liking. You can even send questions to your own CRM automatically if you use Jotform Report Builder! Make the most of your job applications with a free online interview questionnaire form.

Market Research Survey

A market research survey is a questionnaire used by companies to collect information about their customers and their market. Here's a quick market research form that focuses on a few demographic statistics. This survey form will ask for the respondents' age, gender, household income, and educational attainment. The survey format is multiple-choice, giving your respondents an easy way of completing it in a few minutes. Use this market research template and use the collected submission data to your advantage. If you want to create your survey from scratch, you can get started with the survey maker now!Use our free Market Research Survey template for your business — it’s easy to customize, fast to set up, and perfect for collecting info from your customers and fans. Simply add your company logo, change the text and colors, and you’re on your way! If you’d like to embed this survey on your website, you can sync it to a website builder. If you’re looking to collect more information than the Market Research Survey provides, you can use our Form Builder to add more fields. Collect all of the data you need to make decisions with a free Market Research Survey.

• Form Templates /
• Survey Templates /

Survey Templates

Education surveys.

Student Survey

Find out what students think about topics like curriculum, materials, and facilities with Student Survey.

Classroom Observation Survey

Does your school accommodate external reviews by conducting class observations? Once the reviewer is done, observation survey forms would surely help in letting them share their feedback. This classroom observation template will ask the panel the teachers/classes they observed, the grade level, how the environment was throughout the session, and the overall knowledge, skills, behavior, class management, and the overall impression of the class. Use this observation survey template to improve your teachers and students alike.

Teacher Satisfaction Survey

Make the teachers happy by attending to their needs and listening to their feedback by using this Teacher Satisfaction Survey. This form template contains all the required questions when building a survey.

Student Interest Survey

Encourage the students to enjoy the school year by making them interested in the school activities and class lessons. In order to identify their expectations, have them fill up this Student Interest Survey form.

Healthcare Surveys

COVID 19 Vaccine Survey

Get to know how people feel about the new COVID-19 vaccine with a custom online survey. Easy to personalize, embed, and share. Option for HIPAA friendly features.

Health Survey

A Health Survey is a form template designed to collect medical information from patients and log their anamnesis

Mental Health Survey

Conduct mental health assessments with this free survey template for businesses, schools, and more. Easy to customize and fill from any device. No coding.

Patient Health Questionnaire And Generalized Anxiety Disorder Questionnaire

A free Patient Health Questionnaire and Generalized Anxiety Disorder questionnaire is an excellent tool for getting everything you need in one convenient place! Accessible through any mobilde device. Fully customizable.

Technology Surveys

Support Satisfaction Survey

A support satisfaction survey is used by companies to collect feedback about their customer support services.

Technology Survey For Remote Learning

Let students rate their remote learning experience with a free online Technology Survey for Remote Learning. Easy to customize and share. Fill out on any device.

Software Survey Form

A software survey is a questionnaire used by a software company to collect feedback from its users. If you work in software, use our free Software Survey Form to talk to your customers and find out more about how they use your product!

IT Satisfaction Survey

Let's measure how satisfied your customers are with the IT service you provide with the IT Satisfaction Survey. No code required!

Business Surveys

Customer Satisfaction Survey Form

Get to know your customers with a free online Client Satisfaction Survey. Easy to customize, share, and embed. Analyze results to improve your business.

Employee Satisfaction Survey

Get to know your employees with a free online survey. Collect responses from any device. Customize in minutes with no coding. Sync responses to 100+ popular apps.

Employee Motivation Survey

Conduct motivation self-assessments on any device with an online Employee Motivation Survey. Free to customize and share. Analyze results to improve your business.

Business Demographic Survey

A business demographic survey is a survey that captures information about the demographics of a business and its customers. Fully customizable and free.

Quality Surveys

Service Quality Feedback Form

See your business or product through the eyes of your customers to help you stay ahead of the curve.

User Experience Survey

Right after finishing your website, hearing about your customer's feedback would be a huge help in moving forward with the design/development of your project. Searching for a user experience survey sample could be a pain so here's a website user experience survey that you can use as a starting point. This user experience survey template contains 8 basic questions that will gauge your user's overall experience while navigating your website. The survey focuses on accessibility, content and presentation.

Other Survey Templates

If you want to improve your upcoming event, you can get suggestions from participants by using this event satisfaction survey template. This sample feedback form allows gathering overall satisfaction by categorizing the event services. These categories are location, content, price, speakers, organization.

An Online Interview Questionnaire Form is a form template designed to help organizations gather important information from their interviewees.

A Market Research Survey is a form template designed to collect important information about customers and the overall market for companies.

Restaurant Evaluation Form

Customers satisfaction is important for every business and to determine that you need to survey your customers. This restaurant survey form is designed for this purpose. This restaurant evaluation form let your customers rate or evaluate the quality of your services, this includes food quality, overall service quality, cleanliness, order accuracy, speed of service and others. To deliver the highest level of service, this restaurant review form will help you easily understand your customers and their tastes based on their feedback. So if you own a restaurant and you want the quickest and hassle-free to collect feedback, this restaurant review template free is all you need!

Online Slam Book Form

Want an online slam book format for friends? Create your own with Jotform!

Patient Feedback Form

A patient feedback form is a survey with questions that allows medical doctors to gather feedback from patients regarding their overall experience with the clinic.

Exit Interview Form

HR departments can use this free Exit Interview Form to conduct exit interviews online. Customize the form and share via email to quickly collect employee feedback.

Product Survey Form

A product feedback form is a good way to gauge how well (or bad) you're doing as a company. With this product survey form sample, a variety of commonly asked questions are readily available for you to use. This product survey form will ask your respondents how long they have been using your products/services, their impression on how you compete with other competitors, their satisfaction about the products/services you offer and a couple more that's related to the overall experience they had.

Follow Up Survey

A follow up survey is a customer feedback survey that allows customers to review a company or individual. Easy to use. No coding.

Customer Feedback Survey

Great tool to capture customers concerns on products and services used

Quiz Form With A Calculated Number Of Correct Answers

Calculate a number of correct answers with a Form Calculation Widget, and show that number on the form's Thank You page.

Website Survey

A website survey is used to collect information about websites, users, or the website itself.

Demographic Survey

Here is a simple demographic survey template that you can use to determine your market or to make any other research. With this demographic form for research, you can gather gender, age, education, household income and interests of the form's respondents. Use this demographics form template to start your survey now! Or, simply make your own online surveys from scratch!

New Product Survey

A new product survey is a tool used by businesses to collect customer feedback about a new product.

Past Crushes Survey

An online past crushes survey is a questionnaire used by students to collect information about previous relationships.

Evaluation Survey Form

An evaluation survey form is a form template designed to collect information from students about their experience at the school, the quality of the education, and any suggestions for improvement.

Political Poll

Get a full scale political poll from the visitors and determine what the country thinks of the current politics.

My Favorite Things Questionnaire

A My Favorite Things Questionnaire is a form template designed to ask students about their favorite movie, favorite place to go, food, person, game, biggest fear, and greatest hope.

Instructor Evaluation Form

An Instructor Evaluation Survey is a feedback form used by teachers to evaluate the performance of an instructor.

Online Shopping Survey

An online shopping survey is a questionnaire used by online stores to collect feedback from their customers. Whether you run a book, magazine, clothing, or furniture store, use this free Online Shopping Survey!

About Survey Templates

Surveys are the perfect way to gauge customer, employee, or even just public opinion about your brand. Get started the easy way: select a free online survey template from Jotform. We have all the survey and reporting tools to find and collect helpful data. It's perfect when you need to understand customer demographics, or when you need to conduct a market research survey. Select from one of our pre-made sample survey forms or make your own survey from scratch in just minutes. Once you have selected a survey template, use the Jotform builder to design, format and customize your survey form. Try one of our free online survey form templates today!

You can also check out our ready-to-use questionnaire templates prepared for a variety of use cases which allows you to customize your online questionnaire with our drag-and-drop Form Builder.

Frequently Asked Questions

1) what are survey templates.

Survey templates are ready-made sample surveys with built-in questions. Instead of creating a survey from scratch, you can use a template as a starting point, then customize it with your own specific questions, branding elements, and more.

2) Where can I find survey templates?

You can find many survey templates online for free! Jotform’s survey templates are all available in our form templates library. Not only are they free, but they’re totally customizable with our no-code, drag-and-drop form builder, so you don’t have to switch between platforms to find a survey template, customize it, and share it with your audience!

3) What types of survey templates are available?

Jotform offers a wide variety of survey templates for different industries and use cases, including surveys for HR, marketing, products, customer satisfaction, and more. Plus, we have a great selection of employee and education surveys, with everything from polls and assessment forms to motivation and feedback forms.

4) Are survey templates customizable?

Absolutely! As mentioned above, Jotform’s drag-and-drop form builder is the ultimate tool to customize your survey templates in a matter of minutes. You can adjust fonts and colors, drag and drop form fields, drop in logos and images, and so much more. Plus, feel free to sync with our 100-plus integrations — like Google Drive or Dropbox — to add extra functionality to your survey or include it in your existing workflows.

5) How can I use a survey template?

To use a survey template, just select the template you want to use and edit it according to your needs. With Jotform, simply navigate to our Survey Templates page and choose the right one for you. Click Use Template , then use our drag-and-drop Form Builder to customize it and share it with others, all from one place. Responses will automatically be sent to your Jotform Inbox, and you can analyze your data in Jotform Tables and Jotform Report Builder.

6) Can I create my own survey template?

Yes, you can build your own survey from scratch. Navigate to Jotform’s Form Builder, click Create Form , then Start from Scratch . From there, you can add questions and widgets to create the perfect survey template to use as needed.

7) Are survey templates free to use?

Depending on where you source them, some survey templates are free, and some you’ll need to pay for. Jotform’s 1,000-plus survey templates will always be 100 percent free. You’ll just need to upgrade to a paid plan to increase the limit on the number of submissions you receive.

8) How many questions are typically included in a survey template?

Make sure your respondents don’t get “survey fatigue” before they even start taking your survey! The tricky part about this question is that there’s no exact answer — it depends on a number of factors, like who your audience is, what information you need, and what your purpose is. In general, a survey should never take longer than 10 minutes, which means that 5–10 questions is usually a safe range.

9) How do I choose the right survey template for my needs?

Before you choose a survey template, you need to define your research objectives. This can be done by doing a deep dive into your product, service, or team and pinpointing specific topics you want to gather more data on. Once you’ve done this, you can search for survey templates related to your research objective and find one that most closely matches your needs.

10) Can survey templates be used for both online and offline surveys?

Sometimes, you need to be offline to conduct market research or surveys in the field — that’s why finding survey tools that work offline is a game-changer. Jotform Mobile Forms allows you to create, edit, and fill out forms from any location and on any device, and even collects data offline to be populated later once you connect back to the internet. Don’t let spotty cell reception stop you from collecting the survey data you need!

11) What are the benefits of using a survey template?

Using a survey template can cut down on the time you would otherwise spend building a survey from scratch, so that you can spend more time collecting responses and analyzing data to make better business decisions. On top of that, survey templates provide great inspiration for the kinds of questions you should be asking, as well as the format of those questions (multiple choice, yes/no, fill-in-the-blank, etc.).

12) Can survey templates be used for different industries and sectors?

Survey templates can be used across every industry and sector! Whether you’re collecting employee feedback, reaching out to customers about a potential new product, or simply just polling your friends for fun, there’s a survey template for you.

13) How do I modify a survey template to suit my specific requirements?

To modify a survey template to suit your specific needs, you can customize it with your own text, images, branding, and more. Jotform makes this easy with our drag-and-drop form builder. Simply replace our questions with your own, add new fields, switch up the survey colors and fonts, include your logo, and more. Then share it through email, a link, or a QR code, or embed it on your website.

Your account is currently limited to {formLimit} forms.

Go to My Forms and delete an existing form or upgrade your account to increase your form limit.

Questions Generator

Ai-powered questions generator.

Welcome to Toolsaday AI-Powered Question Generator - your ultimate solution for generating unique and engaging questions effortlessly. Are you an educator, quizmaster, or just someone looking for creative questions to test your knowledge? Look no further, as our AI-powered tool helps you create a diverse range of questions tailored to your specific needs!

Key Features

With Toolsaday AI-Powered Question Generator, you can create questions in various formats to suit your requirements. Our innovative tool is packed with features that make it the ultimate choice for generating questions effortlessly:

Multiple choice

Generate questions with multiple answer options. Our AI algorithms will analyze your content and provide a set of possible answers, ensuring that your multiple-choice questions are both challenging and informative.

True or false

Create true or false questions based on the content you provide. Our AI technology will carefully extract facts from the input material to generate questions that effectively test the understanding of your audience.

Open question

Craft open-ended questions that require a written response. Toolsaday AI-Powered Question Generator will analyze your content and generate thought-provoking questions that encourage critical thinking and deep understanding of the subject matter.

Fill in the blank

Generate questions with blanks that participants must complete with the correct answer. Our AI-powered tool ensures the blanks are placed at appropriate points in the text, creating a perfect balance between difficulty and engagement.

Create matching questions that require participants to pair related items correctly. Our AI technology will analyze your content and generate a list of items that must be matched, ensuring a challenging and engaging experience for your audience.

Content Analysis

Our AI-powered tool utilizes advanced natural language processing techniques to understand your content and extract the most relevant and useful information, ensuring that your generated questions are meaningful and contextually accurate.

Adaptive Learning

Toolsaday AI-Powered Question Generator continually learns and improves its question-generating capabilities. As more content is analyzed, the AI algorithm adapts to different styles, subjects, and complexities, offering you a continually improving user experience.

Toolsaday AI-Powered Question Generator is packed with features that make it the go-to choice for generating engaging, informative, and diverse questions. Harness the power of AI and revolutionize your quiz creation process today!

How to Use Toolsaday AI-Powered Question Generator

Using our AI-powered quiz generator is a breeze! Simply follow these steps:

1. Choose your preferred question type (Multiple choice, True or false, Open question, Fill in the blank, or Matching).

2. Specify the content you want the questions to be based on.

3. Click "Generate" and watch as our AI technology crafts unique and engaging questions for you!

4. Review and edit the generated questions to suit your specific requirements, if necessary.

5. Export your questions in your preferred format, ready to be used in your quizzes and assessments!

Join the Toolsaday AI-Powered Question Generator Community

Discover the power of AI and transform your question creation process today. Sign up for a free trial and experience how our AI technology can help you create engaging, high-quality questions in just a few clicks. Join the Toolsaday AI-Powered Question Generator community and revolutionize your quizzes and assessments!

Don't miss out on the opportunity to level up your question-crafting game with the help of our cutting-edge AI technology. Give Toolsaday AI-Powered Question Generator a try and unlock endless possibilities in your quest for crafting the perfect questions!

Toolsaday is an incredibly powerful AI-based tool that can help you create marketing content of the highest quality and utmost appeal, allowing you to maximize your success in the competitive world of digital marketing.

Copyright © ToolsAday 2023

Get to Know Us

Top searches

Trending searches

infertility

30 templates

linguistics

89 templates

15 templates

28 templates

public health

35 templates

holy spirit

38 templates

Create your presentation

Writing tone, number of slides.

AI presentation maker

When lack of inspiration or time constraints are something you’re worried about, it’s a good idea to seek help. Slidesgo comes to the rescue with its latest functionality—the AI presentation maker! With a few clicks, you’ll have wonderful slideshows that suit your own needs . And it’s totally free!

Generate presentations in minutes

We humans make the world move, but we need to sleep, rest and so on. What if there were someone available 24/7 for you? It’s time to get out of your comfort zone and ask the AI presentation maker to give you a hand. The possibilities are endless : you choose the topic, the tone and the style, and the AI will do the rest. Now we’re talking!

Customize your AI-generated presentation online

Alright, your robotic pal has generated a presentation for you. But, for the time being, AIs can’t read minds, so it’s likely that you’ll want to modify the slides. Please do! We didn’t forget about those time constraints you’re facing, so thanks to the editing tools provided by one of our sister projects —shoutouts to Wepik — you can make changes on the fly without resorting to other programs or software. Add text, choose your own colors, rearrange elements, it’s up to you! Oh, and since we are a big family, you’ll be able to access many resources from big names, that is, Freepik and Flaticon . That means having a lot of images and icons at your disposal!

How does it work?

Think of your topic.

First things first, you’ll be talking about something in particular, right? A business meeting, a new medical breakthrough, the weather, your favorite songs, a basketball game, a pink elephant you saw last Sunday—you name it. Just type it out and let the AI know what the topic is.

Choose your preferred style and tone

They say that variety is the spice of life. That’s why we let you choose between different design styles, including doodle, simple, abstract, geometric, and elegant . What about the tone? Several of them: fun, creative, casual, professional, and formal. Each one will give you something unique, so which way of impressing your audience will it be this time? Mix and match!

Make any desired changes

You’ve got freshly generated slides. Oh, you wish they were in a different color? That text box would look better if it were placed on the right side? Run the online editor and use the tools to have the slides exactly your way.

Download the final result for free

Yes, just as envisioned those slides deserve to be on your storage device at once! You can export the presentation in .pdf format and download it for free . Can’t wait to show it to your best friend because you think they will love it? Generate a shareable link!

What is an AI-generated presentation?

It’s exactly “what it says on the cover”. AIs, or artificial intelligences, are in constant evolution, and they are now able to generate presentations in a short time, based on inputs from the user. This technology allows you to get a satisfactory presentation much faster by doing a big chunk of the work.

Can I customize the presentation generated by the AI?

Of course! That’s the point! Slidesgo is all for customization since day one, so you’ll be able to make any changes to presentations generated by the AI. We humans are irreplaceable, after all! Thanks to the online editor, you can do whatever modifications you may need, without having to install any software. Colors, text, images, icons, placement, the final decision concerning all of the elements is up to you.

Can I add my own images?

Absolutely. That’s a basic function, and we made sure to have it available. Would it make sense to have a portfolio template generated by an AI without a single picture of your own work? In any case, we also offer the possibility of asking the AI to generate images for you via prompts. Additionally, you can also check out the integrated gallery of images from Freepik and use them. If making an impression is your goal, you’ll have an easy time!

Is this new functionality free? As in “free of charge”? Do you mean it?

Yes, it is, and we mean it. We even asked our buddies at Wepik, who are the ones hosting this AI presentation maker, and they told us “yup, it’s on the house”.

Are there more presentation designs available?

From time to time, we’ll be adding more designs. The cool thing is that you’ll have at your disposal a lot of content from Freepik and Flaticon when using the AI presentation maker. Oh, and just as a reminder, if you feel like you want to do things yourself and don’t want to rely on an AI, you’re on Slidesgo, the leading website when it comes to presentation templates. We have thousands of them, and counting!.

How can I download my presentation?

The easiest way is to click on “Download” to get your presentation in .pdf format. But there are other options! You can click on “Present” to enter the presenter view and start presenting right away! There’s also the “Share” option, which gives you a shareable link. This way, any friend, relative, colleague—anyone, really—will be able to access your presentation in a moment.

Discover more content

This is just the beginning! Slidesgo has thousands of customizable templates for Google Slides and PowerPoint. Our designers have created them with much care and love, and the variety of topics, themes and styles is, how to put it, immense! We also have a blog, in which we post articles for those who want to find inspiration or need to learn a bit more about Google Slides or PowerPoint. Do you have kids? We’ve got a section dedicated to printable coloring pages! Have a look around and make the most of our site!

Search code, repositories, users, issues, pull requests...

Provide feedback.

We read every piece of feedback, and take your input very seriously.

Saved searches

Use saved searches to filter your results more quickly.

To see all available qualifiers, see our documentation .

• Notifications

A collection of guides and examples for the Gemini API.

google-gemini/cookbook

Folders and files, repository files navigation, welcome to the gemini api cookbook.

This is a collection of guides and examples for the Gemini API, including quickstart tutorials for writing prompts and using different features of the API, and examples of things you can build.

Get started with the Gemini API

The Gemini API gives you access to Gemini models created by Google DeepMind . Gemini models are built from the ground up to be multimodal, so you can reason seamlessly across text, images, code, and audio. You can use these to develop a range of applications .

Start developing

• Go to Google AI Studio .
• Login with your Google account.
• Create an API key.
• Use a quickstart for Python, or call the REST API using curl .

Capabilities

Learn about the capabilities of the Gemini API by checking out the quickstarts for safety , embeddings , function calling , audio , and more.

Official SDKs

The Gemini API is a REST API. You can call the API using a command line tool like curl , or by using one of our official SDKs:

• Dart (Flutter)

Open an issue on GitHub.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. See contributing to learn more.

Thank you for developing with the Gemini API! We’re excited to see what you create.

Contributors 10

• Jupyter Notebook 99.9%

Google's AI Overhaul of Its Workspace Tools Could Make Presentations Easier and Better

Google's new AI tool could zazz up those awful promo videos the intern makes, and small businesses could create better content.

Google, like its big tech AI peer Microsoft, seems intent on pushing AI deeper into everyone's daily digital experience--at work as much as at home. Its latest advance may win fans in offices nationwide, as Google Vids offers cubicle drones a huge boost in making presentation content, promising efficiency and vastly improved quality.

While there are valid reasons to worry about AI's incursions into the workplace, which may unsettle people who think that AI is all about replacing workers with cheap or even free technology, there may be immediate benefits to smaller businesses that could use some support in their content creation.

At companies where the marketing department may be one person or even a function of an employee who has other duties, making video content can be a heavy lift. It can be a real challenge to follow through on the kind of plan managers are quick to delegate, but employees struggle to complete at a high level of quality: "Oh, can you put together a 90 second promo to show off our work for the Board on Friday? Nothing fancy. But make it good."

The AI boost to video comes as part of an upcoming overhaul to Google Workspace , the tech giant's collaboration-oriented, cloud-based productivity software. The system is squarely aimed at work-based tasks rather than more arty or creative uses. In the company blog post announcing the new video tool, Aparna Pappu, general manager and vice president of Workspace, said the goal was to bring "the same magic of real-time collaboration" to video-based products, "allowing people everywhere to tap into immersive storytelling at work."

As the website PCMag noted , Pappu emphasized that the new Google Vids system is specifically aimed at making videos for onboarding or training, sales pitches, board-level presentations and so on.

For any employee tasked with building a presentation at short notice, Vids seems like a boon. As Google's blog post explains, Vids is a "video, writing, production, and editing assistant, all in one." Once it's given a prompt in the form of a Google Sheets document that instructs the AI in the user's specific needs, the system pulls together a first draft "with suggested scenes from stock videos, images, and background music." Users can then edit this draft, change the overall style of the video and tweak the script Vids has put together, and even ask it to narrate the final video using an AI-generated synthetic voice .

As Google summarizes it, Vids is your new designer/writer/producer/editor/storyteller, all in the form of "an entirely new app that can help anyone become a great storyteller at work." Even after filtering out the most rah-rah aspects of the PR speak from the search giant, this means Vids can be thought of as a 21st century PowerPoint slide deck maker for a generation of workers used to YouTube and TikTok .

Vids is now being tested on small groups in a pilot program , but it's expected to be released in June. The tool is definitely useful, but it's an open question whether or not such AI tools boost people's creativity or presages their replacement in the workplace. For a small business or startup, where a team may not have broad experience in putting together video-based material themselves, Vids is a clearly useful system. On the other hand, it may also prompt a startup to delay hiring a real, human video expert if they find that Vids and other AI tools can serve its needs.

The new service may also raise a few questions concerning the sources of the data used to train Google's new video AI. The search giant was recently accused of "scraping" the spoken text from millions of hours of content uploaded by users of YouTube--a video site that plays host to many a company's promotional business video content. While Google Vids may be a perfect answer for some businesses, its emergence raises issues of copyrighted content and broader questions about the future of work.

This post originally appeared at inc.com .

Click here to subscribe to the Inc. newsletter: inc.com/newsletters "

Watch CBS News

What is Eid al-Fitr? 6 questions about the holiday and how Muslims celebrate it, answered

By Ken Chitwood

Updated on: April 9, 2024 / 8:03 AM EDT / The Conversation

Ken Chitwood  is a senior research fellow, Muslim Philanthropy Initiative at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis and journalist-fellow at the Dornsife Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the  University of Southern California Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences .

Eid al-Fitr, one of Islam's principal festivals, will be celebrated April 9, 2024, according to the Fiqh Council of North America . At the middle of June, Muslims will celebrate Eid al-Adha. Ken Chitwood, a scholar of global Islam, explains the two Islamic festivals.

1. What is Eid?

Eid literally means a "festival" or "feast" in Arabic. There are two major eids in the Islamic calendar per year – Eid al-Fitr earlier in the year and Eid al-Adha later.

Eid al-Fitr is a three-day-long festival and is known as the "Lesser" or "Smaller Eid" when compared to Eid al-Adha, which is four days long and is known as the "Greater Eid."

2. Why is Eid celebrated twice a year?

The two Eids recognize, celebrate and recall two distinct events that are significant to the story of Islam.

Eid al-Fitr means "the feast of breaking the fast." The fast, in this instance, is Ramadan , which recalls the revealing of the Quran to Prophet Muhammad and requires Muslims to fast from sunrise to sundown for a month.

3. How do Muslims celebrate Eid al-Fitr?

Eid al-Fitr features two to three days of celebrations that include special morning prayers. People greet each other with "Eid Mubarak," meaning "Blessed Eid" and with formal embraces. Sweet dishes are prepared at home and gifts are given to children and to those in need. In addition, Muslims are encouraged to forgive and seek forgiveness. Practices vary from country to country.

In many countries with large Muslim populations, Eid al-Fitr is a national holiday. Schools, offices and businesses are closed so family, friends and neighbors can enjoy the celebrations together. In the U.S. and the U.K., Muslims may request to have the day off from school or work to travel or celebrate with family and friends.

In countries like Egypt and Pakistan, Muslims decorate their homes with lanterns, twinkling lights or flowers. Special food is prepared and friends and family are invited over to celebrate.

In places like Jordan, with its Muslim majority population, the days before Eid al-Fitr can see a rush at local malls and special "Ramadan markets" as people prepare to exchange gifts on Eid al-Fitr.

In Turkey and in places that were once part of the Ottoman-Turkish empire such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Azerbaijan and the Caucasus, it is also known as the, "Lesser Bayram" or "festival" in Turkish.

4. How do Muslims celebrate Eid al-Adha?

The other festival, Eid al-Adha, is the "feast of the sacrifice." It comes at the end of the Hajj , an annual pilgrimage by millions of Muslims to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia that is obligatory once in a lifetime, but only for those with means.

Eid al-Adha recalls the story of how God commanded Ibrahim to sacrifice his son Ismail as a test of faith. The story, as narrated in the Quran, describes Satan's attempt to tempt Ibrahim so he would disobey God's command. Ibrahim, however, remains unmoved and informs Ismail, who is willing to be sacrificed.

But, just as Ibrahim attempts to kill his son, God intervenes and a ram is sacrificed in place of Ismail. During Eid al-Adha, Muslims slaughter an animal to remember Ibrahim's sacrifice and remind themselves of the need to submit to the will of God.

5. When are they celebrated?

Eid al-Fitr is celebrated on the first day of the 10th month in the Islamic calendar.

Eid al-Adha is celebrated on the 10th day of the final month in the Islamic calendar.

The Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar, and dates are calculated based on lunar phases. Since the Islamic calendar year is shorter than the solar Gregorian calendar year by 10 to 12 days, the dates for Ramadan and Eid on the Gregorian calendar can vary year by year.

6. What is the spiritual meaning of Eid al-Fitr?

Eid al-Fitr, as it follows the fasting of Ramadan, is also seen as a spiritual celebration of Allah's provision of strength and endurance.

Amid the reflection and rejoicing, Eid al-Fitr is a time for charity, known as Zakat al-Fitr. Eid is meant to be a time of joy and blessing for the entire Muslim community and a time for distributing one's wealth.

Charity to the poor is a highly emphasized value in Islam. The Quran says ,

"Believe in Allah and his messenger, and give charity out of the (substance) that Allah has made you heirs of. For those of you who believe and give charity – for them is a great reward."

This piece incorporates materials from an article first published on Aug. 28, 2017. The dates have been updated. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

More from CBS News

Transcript: IMF director Kristalina Georgieva on "Face the Nation," April 14, 2024

Time runs out for Americans hoping to flee chaos in Haiti

Olympic triathlon might be impacted by Seine River pollution

How much of the Masters purse did winner Scottie Scheffler get?

• National Security
• Environment
• Special Investigations
• More Ways to Donate
• Impact & Reports
• Join Newsletter
• Become a Source

© THE INTERCEPT

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Microsoft Pitched OpenAI’s DALL-E as Battlefield Tool for U.S. Military

Any battlefield use of the software would be a dramatic turnaround for OpenAI, which describes its mission as developing AI that can benefit all of humanity.

• Share on Facebook
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on WhatsApp

Microsoft last year proposed using OpenAI’s mega-popular image generation tool, DALL-E, to help the Department of Defense build software to execute military operations, according to internal presentation materials reviewed by The Intercept. The revelation comes just months after OpenAI silently ended its prohibition against military work.

The Microsoft presentation deck, titled “ Generative AI with DoD Data ,” provides a general breakdown of how the Pentagon can make use of OpenAI’s machine learning tools, including the immensely popular ChatGPT text generator and DALL-E image creator, for tasks ranging from document analysis to machine maintenance. (Microsoft invested $10 billion in the ascendant machine learning startup last year, and the two businesses have become tightly intertwined. In February, The Intercept and other digital news outlets  sued Microsoft and OpenAI  for using their journalism without permission or credit.)

The Microsoft document is drawn from a large cache of materials presented at an October 2023 Department of Defense “AI literacy” training seminar hosted by the U.S. Space Force in Los Angeles. The event included a variety of presentation from machine learning firms, including Microsoft and OpenAI, about what they have to offer the Pentagon.

The publicly accessible files were found on the website of Alethia Labs, a nonprofit consultancy that helps the federal government with technology acquisition, and discovered by journalist Jack Poulson . On Wednesday, Poulson published a broader investigation into the presentation materials. Alethia Labs has worked closely with the Pentagon to help it quickly integrate artificial intelligence tools into its arsenal, and since last year has contracted with the Pentagon’s main AI office. The firm did not respond to a request for comment.

One page of the Microsoft presentation highlights a variety of “common” federal uses for OpenAI, including for defense. One bullet point under “Advanced Computer Vision Training” reads: “Battle Management Systems: Using the DALL-E models to create images to train battle management systems.” Just as it sounds, a battle management system is a command-and-control software suite that provides military leaders with a situational overview of a combat scenario, allowing them to coordinate things like artillery fire, airstrike target identification, and troop movements. The reference to computer vision training suggests artificial images conjured by DALL-E could help Pentagon computers better “see” conditions on the battlefield, a particular boon for finding — and annihilating — targets.

In an emailed statement, Microsoft told The Intercept that while it had pitched the Pentagon on using DALL-E to train its battlefield software, it had not begun doing so. “This is an example of potential use cases that was informed by conversations with customers on the art of the possible with generative AI.” Microsoft, which declined to attribute the remark to anyone at the company, did not explain why a “potential” use case was labeled as a “common” use in its presentation.

OpenAI spokesperson Liz Bourgeous said OpenAI was not involved in the Microsoft pitch and that it had not sold any tools to the Department of Defense. “OpenAI’s policies prohibit the use of our tools to develop or use weapons, injure others or destroy property,” she wrote. “We were not involved in this presentation and have not had conversations with U.S. defense agencies regarding the hypothetical use cases it describes.”

Bourgeous added, “We have no evidence that OpenAI models have been used in this capacity. OpenAI has no partnerships with defense agencies to make use of our API or ChatGPT for such purposes.”

At the time of the presentation, OpenAI’s policies seemingly would have prohibited a military use of DALL-E. Microsoft told The Intercept that if the Pentagon used DALL-E or any other OpenAI tool through a contract with Microsoft, it would be subject to the usage policies of the latter company. Still, any use of OpenAI technology to help the Pentagon more effectively kill and destroy would be a dramatic turnaround for the company, which describes its mission as developing safety-focused artificial intelligence that can benefit all of humanity.

“It’s not possible to build a battle management system in a way that doesn’t, at least indirectly, contribute to civilian harm.”

“It’s not possible to build a battle management system in a way that doesn’t, at least indirectly, contribute to civilian harm,” Brianna Rosen, a visiting fellow at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government who focuses on technology ethics.

Rosen, who worked on the National Security Council during the Obama administration, explained that OpenAI’s technologies could just as easily be used to help people as to harm them, and their use for the latter by any government is a political choice. “Unless firms such as OpenAI have written guarantees from governments they will not use the technology to harm civilians — which still probably would not be legally-binding — I fail to see any way in which companies can state with confidence that the technology will not be used (or misused) in ways that have kinetic effects.”

The presentation document provides no further detail about how exactly battlefield management systems could use DALL-E. The reference to training these systems, however, suggests that DALL-E could be to used to furnish the Pentagon with so-called synthetic training data: artificially created scenes that closely resemble germane, real-world imagery. Military software designed to detect enemy targets on the ground, for instance, could be shown a massive quantity of fake aerial images of landing strips or tank columns generated by DALL-E in order to better recognize such targets in the real world.

Even putting aside ethical objections, the efficacy of such an approach is debatable. “It’s known that a model’s accuracy and ability to process data accurately deteriorates every time it is further trained on AI-generated content,” said Heidy Khlaaf, a machine learning safety engineer who previously contracted with OpenAI. “Dall-E images are far from accurate and do not generate images reflective even close to our physical reality, even if they were to be fine-tuned on inputs of Battlefield management system. These generative image models cannot even accurately generate a correct number of limbs or fingers, how can we rely on them to be accurate with respect to a realistic field presence?”

Join Our Newsletter

Original reporting. fearless journalism. delivered to you..

In an interview last month with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Capt. M. Xavier Lugo of the U.S. Navy envisioned a military application of synthetic data exactly like the kind DALL-E can crank out, suggesting that faked images could be used to train drones to better see and recognize the world beneath them.

Lugo, mission commander of the Pentagon’s generative AI task force and member of the Department of Defense Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office, is listed as a contact at the end of the Microsoft presentation document. The presentation was made by Microsoft employee Nehemiah Kuhns, a “technology specialist” working on the Space Force and Air Force.

The Air Force is currently building the Advanced Battle Management System, its portion of a broader multibillion-dollar Pentagon project called the Joint All-Domain Command and Control, which aims to network together the entire U.S. military for expanded communication across branches, AI-powered data analysis, and, ultimately, an improved capacity to kill. Through JADC2, as the project is known, the Pentagon envisions a near-future in which Air Force drone cameras, Navy warship radar, Army tanks, and Marines on the ground all seamlessly exchange data about the enemy in order to better destroy them.

On April 3, U.S. Central Command revealed it had already begun using elements of JADC2 in the Middle East.

The Department of Defense didn’t answer specific questions about the Microsoft presentation, but spokesperson Tim Gorman told The Intercept that “the [Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office’s] mission is to accelerate the adoption of data, analytics, and AI across DoD. As part of that mission, we lead activities to educate the workforce on data and AI literacy, and how to apply existing and emerging commercial technologies to DoD mission areas.”

While Microsoft has long reaped billions from defense contracts, OpenAI only recently acknowledged it would begin working with the Department of Defense. In response to The Intercept’s January report on OpenAI’s military-industrial about face, the company’s spokesperson Niko Felix said that even under the loosened language, “Our policy does not allow our tools to be used to harm people, develop weapons, for communications surveillance, or to injure others or destroy property.”

“The point is you’re contributing to preparation for warfighting.”

Whether the Pentagon’s use of OpenAI software would entail harm or not might depend on a literal view of how these technologies work, akin to arguments that the company that helps build the gun or trains the shooter is not responsible for where it’s aimed or pulling the trigger. “They may be threading a needle between the use of [generative AI] to create synthetic training data and its use in actual warfighting,” said Lucy Suchman, professor emerita of anthropology of science and technology at Lancaster University. “But that would be a spurious distinction in my view, because the point is you’re contributing to preparation for warfighting.”

Unlike OpenAI, Microsoft has little pretense about forgoing harm in its “responsible AI” document and openly promotes the military use of its machine learning tools .

OpenAI Quietly Deletes Ban on Using ChatGPT for “Military and Warfare”

Following its policy reversal, OpenAI was also quick to emphasize to the public and business press that its collaboration with the military was of a defensive, peaceful nature. In a January interview at Davos responding to The Intercept’s reporting, OpenAI vice president of global affairs Anna Makanju assured panel attendees that the company’s military work was focused on applications like cybersecurity initiatives and veteran suicide prevention, and that the company’s groundbreaking machine learning tools were still forbidden from causing harm or destruction.

Contributing to the development of a battle management system, however, would place OpenAI’s military work far closer to warfare itself. While OpenAI’s claim of avoiding direct harm could be technically true if its software does not directly operate weapons systems, Khlaaf, the machine learning safety engineer, said, its “use in other systems, such as military operation planning or battlefield assessments” would ultimately impact “where weapons are deployed or missions are carried out.”

Indeed, it’s difficult to imagine a battle whose primary purpose isn’t causing bodily harm and property damage. An Air Force press release from March, for example, describes a recent battle management system exercise as delivering “lethality at the speed of data.”

Other materials from the AI literacy seminar series make clear that “harm” is, ultimately, the point. A slide from a welcome presentation given the day before Microsoft’s asks the question, “Why should we care?” The answer: “We have to kill bad guys.” In a nod to the “literacy” aspect of the seminar, the slide adds, “We need to know what we’re talking about… and we don’t yet.”

Update: April 11, 2024 This article was updated to clarify Microsoft’s promotion of its work with the Department of Defense.

Contact the author:

Profits Skyrocket for AI Gun Detection Used in Schools — Despite Dubious Results

The Internet’s New Favorite AI Proposes Torturing Iranians and Surveilling Mosques

The Microsoft Police State: Mass Surveillance, Facial Recognition, and the Azure Cloud

Latest stories.

Remember the Centrists Who Lost the House in 2022? They’re Back!

New York congressional hopeful John Avlon, a centrist with GOP ties, was endorsed by a party chair widely blamed for losing the House.

Israel’s War on Gaza

Israel and Israel Alone Kicked Off This Escalation — In a Bid to Drag U.S. Into War With Iran

Murtaza Hussain

Netanyahu’s recklessness was fostered by blind U.S. support, but Israel is the one pushing its war with Iran out of the shadows.

Israel Conflict Spreads to 16 Nations as Biden Admin Says There’s No War

Ken Klippenstein, Daniel Boguslaw

Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Israel highlight an America-led regional war spanning Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and others.

Join Our Newsletter Original reporting. Fearless journalism. Delivered to you.