Enhance with AI: workshop materials
STEP 1 | Download the SWD + AI primer
Welcome to the enhance with AI workshop! Below you’ll find everything you need to get ready. First up, download the SWD + AI primer. It opens with the fundamentals of data storytelling, drawn from storytelling with data: before & after, followed by guidance written for your AI partner. THEY SHOULD HAVE ALREADY DOWNLOADED THE PRIMER IN PRE-WORK
Now, share/upload the entire PDF with your organization’s approved AI tool with the following prompt.
Review the attached guide from storytelling with data and use these principles when we explore ideas or discuss, review, and create graphs, slides, and presentations. Prioritize simplicity, clarity, and audience focus in all future recommendations.
STEP 2 | Conversation starters for your AI partner
With the primer shared, you’re ready to bring AI into your process as a thought partner and a collaborator.
Treat these as conversation starters, not formulas. Share your thinking, react to the response, add context, ask follow-up questions, and challenge suggestions. The goal isn’t to craft the perfect prompt, but rather to have a productive conversation that yields better results.
Below is a menu of conversation starters across three stages: plan, create, and deliver. When you plan and deliver, you consult AI as a thought partner that asks questions, challenges assumptions, and surfaces what you might have missed. When you create, you direct AI to draft, build, and strengthen your graphs and slides, then choose what to keep and refine it.
You won’t need to try them all. Choose the ones that fit the work you do, and save the rest for later. Where you see [brackets], swap in your own content. If you’re working through several prompts in one conversation, skip any context your AI already has by deleting that line before you paste.
No project to work with? Use this example (click to expand the scenario)
Don’t have a project of your own? Use this one. The scenario and data give you the background, but leave the message, the action, and the visual choices for you and your AI partner to work out. Paste both into your AI tool to set the context, then work through the prompts to build your story.
The scenario
Imagine you are a teacher. This school year, your class’s test scores followed an unusual path. The class average started at 60% in September, fell to a low of 38% in December, and finished the year at 88% in June.
After the December low, you researched and tried different teaching and student-support strategies. Scores improved modestly at first, then climbed sharply after you introduced study groups in March. The groups intentionally mixed students of different abilities so they could share challenges and strategies and learn from one another.
Now you need to present how the year went to the school’s administrators as part of an update, in a live presentation.
The data
Test scores over time: the minimum, average, and maximum score each month for the class, September 2025 to June 2026
Month | Min | Average | Max
Sep 2025 | 30% | 60% | 80%
Oct 2025 | 35% | 62% | 78%
Nov 2025 | 17% | 49% | 68%
Dec 2025 | 8% | 38% | 70%
Jan 2026 | 12% | 45% | 80%
Feb 2026 | 22% | 48% | 85%
Mar 2026 | 25% | 50% | 87%
Apr 2026 | 47% | 68% | 90%
May 2026 | 52% | 77% | 96%
Jun 2026 | 65% | 88% | 100%
Prefer a file? Download the data as CSV or Excel.
Want to see one way this played out? Watch how Cole worked through the same graph with four AI tools.
Use AI as a thought partner to challenge your thinking and shape your story.
Use AI to plan
Start with context
Before creating anything, use AI to pressure-test your audience, what’s at stake for them, and the message you want to communicate. Start with the Big Idea worksheet (a free single-page download) or simply describe your thinking. Write your own Big Idea first, then use AI to make it stronger.
Refine your Big Idea
Try this to check that your audience, stakes, and Big Idea fit together
I’m working to refine my Big Idea.
Here’s my context: [share your Big Idea worksheet, or write a couple of sentences about your project, then describe your audience, what they care about, the action you need them to take, the benefits if they act, the risks if they don’t, and your draft Big Idea if you have one]
Review what I’ve shared and help me think through:
• Does it seem like I’ve identified the right primary audience, or is there a case for thinking about this differently?
• For each person or group, what might they care about that I haven’t listed?
• Is the action I’m asking for clear, realistic, and sufficiently specific?
• Are the benefits and risks I’ve listed meaningful to this audience, and do they connect to the action I’m asking for?
• If I’ve drafted my Big Idea, does it articulate a point of view, convey what’s at stake, and read as a complete, single sentence?
• Do the audience, the stakes, and the Big Idea fit together, or are there gaps between them?
• Before offering feedback, ask me any questions that would help you give better input. Please refrain from drafting the Big Idea for now.
Think through the audience
Try this to explore who matters most, what motivates them, and where they might push back
I’m working to understand the audience for my Big Idea.
Here’s my context: [share the “Who is your audience?” section of your Big Idea worksheet (or the whole worksheet), or write a couple of sentences about your project, then list the groups or individuals you’re communicating with, the single person you’ve narrowed to if you have one, what they care about, and the action you need them to take]
Review what I’ve shared and help me think through my audience:
• If I’ve narrowed to a single person, does that feel logical given my project, or is there someone on my list who could be a more relevant primary audience member? If I haven’t narrowed yet, help me narrow my list to the most relevant primary audience.
• What biases might each person or group bring to this topic?
• What would motivate each of them to act?
• Where might they push back or disagree, and why?
• Before offering feedback, ask me any questions that would help you give better input. Please refrain from drafting the Big Idea for now.
Brainstorm the stakes for the audience
Try this to test whether your stakes are meaningful, which will resonate most, and what you might be missing
I’m working to define what’s at stake for my audience.
Here’s my context: [share the “Who is your audience?” and “What is at stake?” sections of your Big Idea worksheet (or the whole worksheet), or write a couple of sentences about your project, then describe your audience, what they care about, the benefits if they act, and the risks if they don’t]
Based on what I’ve shared about my audience and what they care about, help me think through:
• Are these benefits and risks genuinely meaningful to my specific audience, or do any feel too generic?
• Which benefits or risks are likely to resonate most strongly given their priorities and concerns?
• What stakes might matter more to them that I haven’t listed?
• What might I be overlooking, assuming, or oversimplifying?
• Which of these are most essential to work into my Big Idea?
• Before offering feedback, ask me any questions that would help you give better input. Please refrain from drafting the Big Idea for now.
Make your Big Idea more impactful
Try this to check your draft’s point of view and stakes, and explore stronger ways to say it
I’ve drafted my Big Idea.
Here’s my context and my Big Idea: [share your Big Idea worksheet, or write a couple of sentences about your project, your audience, and what’s at stake for them, followed by your Big Idea sentence]
Help me make it more impactful by thinking through:
• Does it clearly articulate a specific point of view, or does it read as neutral, vague, or descriptive?
• Does it convey what’s genuinely at stake for my audience?
• Is it a complete, single sentence? If not, can you suggest ways to wordsmith?
• Suggest two or three possible refinements that keep my original intent but improve clarity, relevance, or resonance.
• Before offering feedback, ask me any questions that would help you give better input.
Revise your Big Idea for a different audience
Try this to see how your Big Idea shifts for another person or group from your worksheet
I’ve drafted my Big Idea and want to adapt it for a different audience.
Here’s my context and my Big Idea: [share your Big Idea worksheet, or write a couple of sentences about your project and the audience you wrote it for, followed by your Big Idea sentence]
The audience I want to adapt it for: [another person or group from your worksheet, and what you know about them: what they care about, what they already know, the action you need them to take, and what’s at stake for them]
Help me adapt my Big Idea. Tell me:
• What stays the same, and what needs to change?
• Where might my original framing fall flat or backfire with this audience?
• What would a revised Big Idea look like in a single sentence, and what did you adjust?
• Before offering feedback, ask me any questions that would help you give better input.
Craft a story
Brainstorm and arrange your ideas away from the screen first, such as on sticky notes. Then use AI to find the narrative arc in your material, test different ways it could flow, and see where the story loses momentum.
Improve your brainstorm
Try this to find which ideas earn their place, which belong together, and which need a clearer point of view
I’ve brainstormed ideas for potential content, one idea per sticky note, without filtering.
Here are my ideas: [share a photo of your sticky notes or a list of your ideas]
Here’s my context: [share your Big Idea worksheet, or write a couple of sentences about your project, your audience, and what you’re looking to achieve, including the action you want to see happen]
Review my ideas and help me think through:
• Which ideas serve my audience’s needs, and which serve my own process instead?
• Which are unnecessarily granular, or unlikely to lead to action?
• Do any ideas overlap and belong together?
• Which ideas are descriptive labels that could be reworded as a clear point of view?
• Before offering feedback, ask me any questions that would help you give better input. Don’t suggest adding more content.
Map your ideas to a narrative arc
Try this to find the arc in your raw ideas, where tension builds, peaks, and resolves
I’ve generated ideas for potential content but haven’t structured it yet.
Here are my ideas: [share a photo of your sticky notes or a list of your ideas]
Here’s my context: [share your Big Idea worksheet, or write a couple of sentences about your project, your audience, and what you’re looking to achieve, including the action you want to see happen]
Act as a thought partner and help me identify a narrative arc from this raw material. Your role is to identify gaps, inconsistencies, or places where the story loses momentum. Don’t rewrite it for me and don’t suggest adding more content. Focus on whether what I have can be shaped into—or already follows—a clear narrative arc that builds tension and moves toward resolution.
Review and tell me:
• Does the content map to a clear narrative arc—is there identifiable tension, a clear climax, and a fitting resolution?
• What isn’t earning its place—is there anything that feels redundant, out of order, or likely to lose the audience?
• Are there any logical gaps—places where I’m assuming the audience will connect dots they may not connect?
• Before offering feedback, ask me any questions that would help you give better input.
Test different narrative flows
Try this to test whether your sequence builds an arc and compare other ways to order your story
I’ve arranged my content into a sequence.
Here’s my sequence: [share a photo of your storyboard or a list of your planned content in order]
Here’s my context: [share your Big Idea worksheet, or write a couple of sentences about your project, your audience, and what you’re looking to achieve, including the action you want to see happen]
Act as a thought partner and help me evaluate whether it follows a narrative arc or could be restructured more effectively. Keep my content as it is and don’t suggest adding more content.
Review and tell me:
• Does my sequence follow a narrative arc, or mostly the chronology of my work?
• What are two or three other ways this content could flow, and where would tension build and peak in each?
• Which flow would be most likely to move my audience to act, and why?
• Before offering feedback, ask me any questions that would help you give better input.
Use AI to create
Once the context is set, use AI to help you build. You direct, AI drafts, and you decide what to keep.
Graphs
Once you know what you want to communicate, use AI to explore different ways to visualize it and weigh the tradeoffs. Then hand off the building: create charts beyond the standard templates, or rebuild a design you admire with your own data.
Explore different chart types
Try this to compare options side by side and find the best visual for your message
I’m working on a data visualization for a presentation and want to explore chart options. I’ll share the context and my data. Act as a thought partner to help me identify and prototype effective visual options.
My audience is: [briefly describe]
I want to show: [state your takeaway in a single sentence]
How it will be used: [describe the context, such as a single slide in a live presentation or a standalone graph in an email, and the goal, such as informing, persuading, or prompting a specific action]
Here is my data: [paste your data, an aggregated table, or describe the dataset]
Please generate two or three charts that could work well for this message and audience. Render the graphs so I can evaluate them visually. For each, briefly explain what it makes easy to see, and what it might obscure.
Before making suggestions, ask me any questions that would help you give better input.
Create charts not available in templates
Try this to save time building a non-standard chart while you keep control of the design
Here’s my data and the takeaway I want to communicate: [share your data and message]
Create a [chart type, e.g., slopegraph, dumbbell plot, small multiples] as [an editable chart, an image, or code, whichever my tool supports]. Use only the data I’ve provided. Tell me what you assumed and what I should check before using it.
If you can’t create it, provide an image and give me step-by-step instructions to build it myself.
Emulate an existing design
Try this to see a sketch or an example chart rebuilt with your data
Here’s a design I want to emulate: [attach an image of an existing graph or slide, or a sketch of the layout you have in mind]
Here’s my data and the takeaway I want to communicate: [share your data and message]
Build a graph for my data that follows the layout, structure, and visual approach of the design. Create it as [an editable chart, an image, or code, whichever my tool supports]. Use only the data I’ve provided. Tell me anything you couldn’t replicate or had to interpret, and what I should check before using it.
If you can’t create it, provide an image and give me step-by-step instructions to build it myself.
Slides
Turn your key points into slides: draft takeaway titles, check a slide’s message and design, and condense the whole story onto one summary slide.
Generate takeaway titles
Try this to turn your key points into titles that tell your audience what to notice
Help me turn each point I plan to make into a draft takeaway title for the eventual slide: [share your storyboard, or list the important points you plan to make]
Here’s my context: [share your Big Idea worksheet, or write a couple of sentences about your project, your audience, and what you’re looking to achieve, including the action you want to see happen]
Each title should be a single, pithy statement that tells the audience what to notice or understand from that slide—not a label for the content, but a clear point of view. Give me just the draft titles as a simple numbered list, without explanatory notes.
Critique a slide design
Try this to check whether your title, message, and words tell your audience what to see
Here’s the slide I’m working on: [attach a screenshot of your draft slide]
My audience is: [briefly describe]
What this slide needs to communicate: [state your takeaway in a single sentence]
How it will be used: [for example, one slide in a live presentation or a slide in a pre-read]
Critique the design through the lens of clear, simple data communication. Tell me:
• Is the takeaway title doing its job, and does the evidence on the slide support it?
• Is there a clear message hierarchy, or are the title, subtitle, and text repeating each other?
• Are the words right, and is anything over-annotated?
• Does the slide make it obvious what the audience should see?
• Before offering feedback, ask me any questions that would help you give better input. Recommend changes and explain why, but don’t make them yet.
Create a summary slide
Try this to turn your presentation into a one-page summary that can stand on its own
I need to turn my presentation slides into a one-page summary that can stand on its own. Help me create the actual slide, using the guidance in the SWD + AI primer I shared and this article on designing a one-page summary with visuals: https://www.storytellingwithdata.com/blog/2022/1/14/executive-summary-slides
Here are my slides, with the key speaker notes so you understand the key points to articulate: [share your slides and key speaker notes]
Before you start, ask me any questions that would help you give better input, such as the audience, the main takeaway or action I want, brand colors and fonts, and where the page will be used (printed, emailed, or a PDF). Then draft the headline and supporting text first so we can agree on the message. Recommend which of the article’s layouts suits my content, and build the page around the key visual. Use only what’s in my slides and notes.
If you can’t open the article, ask me to paste it. If you can’t create the slide itself, give me its text and a suggested layout.
Animate a graph
Try this to guide your audience’s attention by revealing a graph step by step
Here’s a slide I’ve built with a graph on it: [attach it or describe it]
The point I want my audience to see is: [state it]
Suggest a simple animation that builds it in steps. For each step, tell me what appears, what the audience should notice, and what I should say. Every step should direct attention, not decorate. If you can’t apply the animation, give me step-by-step instructions for [PowerPoint].
Design effective graphs and slides
Whether you’ve built a graph or a slide, use AI to strengthen it: share what you like and don’t like, find what to declutter, and decide where to focus your audience’s attention.
Improve a graph or slide
Try this to turn what you like and don’t like about your draft into specific improvements
Here’s a graph or slide I want to improve: [attach a screenshot of it]
For more context: [paste a link to the webpage or document it comes from, or describe where it will be used]
Here’s what I like about it: [describe]
What I don’t like: [describe]
How would you improve it? Recommend the changes that would make the biggest difference, and I’ll let you know which to apply. Before offering feedback, ask me any questions that would help you give better input.
Declutter a graph or slide
Try this to get a step-by-step list of what to remove, then choose which steps to do
Here’s a graph or slide I’m working on: [attach a screenshot of your draft]
Critique it through the lens of clear, simple data communication. Which elements are adding clutter without adding meaning—what should be removed or simplified? List out the steps, and I’ll let you know which to do. Before offering feedback, ask me any questions that would help you give better input.
Focus your audience’s attention
Try this to get options for guiding your audience’s eye to what matters most, then select which to apply
Here’s a graph or slide I’m working on: [attach a screenshot of your draft]
The message I want my audience to take away is: [state it]
Where are your eyes drawn? Is attention being directed to the right place? Is anything distracting? Is color being used intentionally and sparingly? Does the title tell the audience the most important takeaway, or simply describe what it shows? Give me options for directing attention, and I’ll select which to apply.
Use AI to deliver
Use AI to get ready for the room. It can sharpen your preparation, but the practice and the delivery are yours.
Present powerfully
Before you present, use AI to refine your speaker notes and prepare for the questions your audience might ask.
Improve your speaker notes
Try this to see where your notes could land more clearly, then tighten them in your own voice
Here are my slides and my current speaker notes: [share your slides and notes, or paste the text of each slide and its notes]
My context: [write a couple of sentences about your audience and what you’re looking to achieve, including the action you want to see happen]. Time I have to present: [x minutes]
Help me improve my notes. Keep my voice and don’t write a script. Where am I just reading what’s on the slides? Which points are least clear or most likely to lose this audience? How could I improve the transitions from one slide to the next? Then give me a tightened version as short bullets. Before offering feedback, ask me any questions that would help you give better input.
Anticipate questions and plan for the unexpected
Try this to prepare for the toughest questions and be ready for the unexpected
I’m preparing for a presentation and want to stress-test my readiness. Use the following context to act as a thought partner and help me prepare for what could go wrong.
My audience is: [describe]
My key message is: [state it]
My main recommendation is: [state it]
First, help me anticipate tough questions:
• What are the three to five hardest questions this audience is likely to ask?
• For each, what’s the strongest version of that challenge—what would a genuinely skeptical audience member say?
• How would you suggest I address each one?
Then, help me plan for the unexpected:
• What could go wrong logistically—and how should I prepare to handle it?
• What interpersonal scenarios should I be ready for—a hostile question, a senior person who disagrees publicly, being asked something I don’t know?
• What’s my plan if I run significantly over or under time?
• Before offering feedback, ask me any questions that would help you give better input.
Keep the conversation going
The first response is simply a starting point. Tell AI what you agree or disagree with. Ask why. Request alternatives. Share additional context. Try an idea and bring the result back for critique. Your judgment should guide where the conversation goes next.
See these conversations in action: our SWD + AI blog series explores each step in greater detail, with expanded conversation starters and a case study illustrating how each conversation unfolds.
Find these and additional resources for using AI throughout your data storytelling process at: storytellingwithdata.com/ai