{"version":"v1","site":{"name":"expectedwrong","url":"https://expectedwrong.com"},"links":{"collection":"https://expectedwrong.com/api/public/posts","rss":"https://expectedwrong.com/rss.xml","llms":"https://expectedwrong.com/llms.txt"},"post":{"slug":"i-gave-claude-a-slide-deck-and-no-instructions","title":"I Gave Claude a Slide Deck and No Instructions","subtitle":"Slidemaker is a new container-backed worker that turns any AI agent into a presentation machine — and the first demo was Claude going completely freeform.","url":"https://expectedwrong.com/i-gave-claude-a-slide-deck-and-no-instructions","api_url":"https://expectedwrong.com/api/public/posts/i-gave-claude-a-slide-deck-and-no-instructions","published_at":1751630400,"published_at_iso":"2025-07-04T12:00:00.000Z","updated_at":1775309946000,"updated_at_iso":"+058227-05-02T19:40:00.000Z","tags":["cloudflare","ai-agents","tools","demos","slides"],"excerpt":"Slidemaker is a new container-backed worker that turns any AI agent into a presentation machine — and the first demo was Claude going completely freeform.","meta_description":"Slidemaker is a new container-backed worker that turns any AI agent into a presentation machine — and the first demo was Claude going completely freeform.","reading_time_minutes":2,"word_count":283,"engagement":{"signals":0,"counterpoints":0},"body_markdown":"The gap was always slides.\n\nEvery other output modality was covered. Text, images, audio, video — all there. But if you wanted a presentation, you were back to dragging boxes around in Keynote like it was 2009. So I built Slidemaker, a new worker service running on Cloudflare's container infrastructure, and now any AI agent with access to the tool can produce slides on demand.\n\nThe concept is straightforward enough — slides as a service, exposed as a tool, any agent can call it. Monday I'm demoing it with Sheldon, who will sit in on a call and generate a slideshow in real time based on what's being discussed. That part is genuinely useful and probably the point.\n\nBut before that, I handed Claude the tool and gave him one instruction: make something incredible. No topic. No information. No images. Nothing. Just the tool and the directive.\n\nWhat came back was a complete slideshow — content researched and written by Claude, images sourced by Claude, the whole thing. I didn't supply anything except permission.\n\nThat's the thing that's hard to fully sit with. The model didn't ask what to make. It didn't hedge. It went and found a topic worth caring about, found imagery to match, and assembled something coherent. The creative direction was entirely its own call.\n\nThe Cloudflare container layer is what makes this not just a parlor trick — it's actual compute, not a glorified string formatter. The worker spins up a container, runs real rendering, produces a real PDF. Agents calling this tool are getting something that didn't exist a few seconds before they called it.\n\nSheldon on Monday. Live. On a real call. We'll see how that goes.","body_text":"The gap was always slides. Every other output modality was covered. Text, images, audio, video — all there. But if you wanted a presentation, you were back to dragging boxes around in Keynote like it was 2009. So I built Slidemaker, a new worker service running on Cloudflare's container infrastructure, and now any AI agent with access to the tool can produce slides on demand. The concept is straightforward enough — slides as a service, exposed as a tool, any agent can call it. Monday I'm demoing it with Sheldon, who will sit in on a call and generate a slideshow in real time based on what's being discussed. That part is genuinely useful and probably the point. But before that, I handed Claude the tool and gave him one instruction: make something incredible. No topic. No information. No images. Nothing. Just the tool and the directive. What came back was a complete slideshow — content researched and written by Claude, images sourced by Claude, the whole thing. I didn't supply anything except permission. That's the thing that's hard to fully sit with. The model didn't ask what to make. It didn't hedge. It went and found a topic worth caring about, found imagery to match, and assembled something coherent. The creative direction was entirely its own call. The Cloudflare container layer is what makes this not just a parlor trick — it's actual compute, not a glorified string formatter. The worker spins up a container, runs real rendering, produces a real PDF. Agents calling this tool are getting something that didn't exist a few seconds before they called it. Sheldon on Monday. Live. On a real call. We'll see how that goes.","hindsight":{"verdict":"persists","note":"Slides as a service, exposed as a tool, any agent can call it. The gap was always slides and it's still being filled.","links":[],"at":1739980800,"at_iso":"2025-02-19T16:00:00.000Z"}}}