AI Now Editing Your Slides So You Don’t Have To?

Google just dropped two new AI tools into Slides: Replace Background and Expand Background, and they’re here to rescue you from design disasters. You know that one slide with your blurry headshot floating in front of a wall that looks like a prison cell? Yeah. Now, with a few clicks and a simple prompt like “beach at sunset” or “fancy office,” AI will swap the background like magic, and suddenly you look like you run a Fortune 500 company... even if you're working from your mom’s basement.

Then there’s Expand Background, which is basically Google’s way of saying, “Don’t crop it, we got this.” Got a picture that’s too small for the slide? Instead of stretching it until everyone looks like a Minecraft character, AI will generate more matching backgrounds to fill in the spaces smoothly, naturally, and without your slide screaming, “I gave up.”

This might sound like one of those “okay but who asked?” updates, but trust me, it matters. Not because it’s revolutionary. Because it’s practical, it saves time, it saves your dignity, and it keeps you from Googling “how to make a slide not look like garbage” at 2 am before a big meeting. Google’s quietly turning Slides into a low-key design tool. You don’t need Canva. You don’t need Photoshop. You don’t even need to pretend you know what a PNG is.

Google wants to keep you from leaving. Microsoft PowerPoint has its Copilot AI, Canva is flexing on TikTok with aesthetic templates, and Google’s like, “Hey, we’ve got smart stuff too… and you don’t even need to leave the app.” They're competing by making Slides less of a blank page nightmare and more of a one-stop productivity power tool.

If you're a CEO or team lead, this means fewer “can you fix this slide?” emails and more work getting done. If you’re an employee, congrats, you can now make your deck look stunning without bribing the design team with coffee. And if you’re just an average person? Your school presentation, fundraiser pitch, or PTA meeting slideshow can now look like it wasn’t made in Microsoft Paint.

But here’s the real kicker: AI is coming for the small stuff. It’s trimming the fat from your workday, slide by slide. You don’t even notice it happening until you realize you haven’t manually resized an image in six months. It’s not flashy. It’s sneaky. And it’s kinda awesome.

Will this help you look more impressive at work, school, or your kid’s soccer club? Know someone who still struggles with formatting slides like it's 2006? Pass this along and let’s talk about how AI is quietly fixing the stuff we all hate doing.

- Matt Masinga