Alai
Alai is an AI presentation maker that turns text, notes or documents into on-brand slides, infographics, carousels and posters. It builds a design system from your brand assets, offers four layout options per slide and exports to PDF and PowerPoint.
What is Alai?
Alai is an AI presentation maker published by Back to the core Inc. and used from a web application at app.getalai.com. Its pitch is on-brand AI design for presentations, social posts, infographics and more, and the product is organised in three moves: Brand, Create, Refine.
Brand comes first. Rather than picking a template, you build a design system from your own assets — existing templates, past presentations, your website, your posters — or you pick one from a library of hand-crafted systems. Everything generated afterwards inherits it, which is how Alai keeps output consistent across a whole deck and across formats.
Create covers more than slides: presentations, infographics, carousels, posters and social posts, on any canvas size. For each slide the AI proposes four layout options rather than one, with and without imagery, so you choose instead of regenerating. Specialised elements — Compare Two, Feature Matrix, process flows, funnels, timelines — and AI-generated diagrams such as Venn charts, quadrants, org charts, flowcharts and hub-and-spoke maps come out editable, not as flat images. Contextual image generation is available too, including theme-aware Nano Banana Pro presets that mix with regular slides in the same deck. The company says its AI was trained on more than a thousand presentations.
Refine is where Alai claims its edge: the model holds the context of the entire project, so an edit made on one slide stays consistent with the ones before it. You can change anything with a prompt or take over manually at any time. The canvas is responsive — adding or removing an element rebalances the slide instead of breaking it — and spacing control is unusually granular for this category: margins, padding, text hierarchy, sub-element size and position, auto-spacing.
Work leaves cleanly as PDF or PowerPoint, or as a shared link with engagement tracking: views, time spent, drop-off points. Beyond the app, a Beta REST API, an MCP server and A2A support let agents and automation platforms such as Zapier, Make and viasocket generate decks programmatically. Alai is backed by Y Combinator and was voted #2 Product of the Day on Product Hunt.
What it does
- Generate presentations, infographics, carousels, posters and social posts from a text, a set of notes or a document
- Build a design system from your own brand assets, or pick one from the built-in library
- Choose between four AI-generated layout options for every slide, with and without imagery
- Refine any slide by prompt, or take over manually at any time
- Produce editable AI diagrams: Venn charts, quadrants, flowcharts, org charts, funnels and timelines
- Export to PDF or PowerPoint, or share a link and track views, time spent and drop-off points
- Automate deck generation through the REST API, an MCP server or the A2A protocol
When to use Alai / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if Alai is the right fit.
When to use Alai
- Startup founders preparing investor updates, pitch decks and board meetings without an in-house designer
- Sales, pre-sales and customer success teams turning calls into client proposals and onboarding decks that stay on-brand
- Marketing, brand and communications teams that also need infographics, carousels, posters and social posts from a single design system
- Agencies and consultants shipping recurring client reports and weekly recaps, automated through the API, Zapier, Make or viasocket
- Developers and AI-agent builders who want decks generated programmatically through the REST API, the MCP server or the A2A protocol
When not to use Alai
- Compliance-driven buyers: Alai publishes no data processing agreement, no security certification such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001, and no Article 27 EU representative
- Teams bound by European data residency: the privacy policy announces transfer and processing in the United States, with no choice of hosting region
- Anyone expecting a mobile app, a desktop app or a browser extension: none exists, everything runs on the web and through the API
- Designers hunting for a large template catalogue, since the site itself concedes a smaller library than Beautiful.ai and stays presentation-centric
- High-volume users hoping to stay on the free plan: its 300 AI credits never renew, slides are capped at 10 per prompt and watermarks cannot be removed
How to use Alai
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Try the free tools listed in the site footer without creating an account: PDF to PPT, Link to PPT, Prettify your Deck and NotebookLM Slides Editor
- Create an account on app.getalai.com; the free plan requires no credit card
- Build your design system from your brand assets, or pick one from the library of hand-crafted systems
- Submit a text, a set of notes or a document, then choose the number of slides and the style
- Wait for generation: most decks come back in one to three minutes, depending on the number of slides
- Review the four layout options proposed for each slide and keep the one you want
- Refine by prompt or take over manually, adding editable diagrams and contextual images where they help
- Export to PDF or PowerPoint, or share a link and follow views, time spent and drop-off points
- API route: create a key in Settings > API, POST your text to /generations, collect the generation_id, then poll GET /generations/{id} until the status is completed
- Agent route: add the MCP server at slides-api.getalai.com/mcp/ to Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf or ChatGPT and sign in with OAuth, with no API key to manage
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Four layout options per slide instead of one, which spares regenerations and saves AI credits
- Deck-wide contextual AI keeps every edit consistent with the rest of the presentation
- Diagrams are generated as editable objects rather than flat images, and spacing control is unusually fine for this category
- PDF and PowerPoint export announced without formatting breakage
- Permanent free plan with 300 AI credits and no credit card required
- Genuinely open to automation: REST API, MCP server, A2A protocol, Zapier, Make and viasocket
- Built-in engagement tracking on shared decks, plus direct support channels on Discord, Slack and email, with founder access on the higher tiers
Cons
- AI credits are capped per tier and do not roll over from one month to the next
- Slides per prompt are limited to 10 on Free, 20 on Plus and 50 on Pro and Ultra, and free-plan watermarks cannot be removed
- The template library is smaller than Beautiful.ai's, as the site itself concedes, and the tool stays presentation-centric
- The API is still in Beta and limited to five concurrent generations per user
- No mobile app, no desktop app and no browser extension
- Thin legal and security footprint: no postal address, no data processing agreement, no security certification, no Article 27 EU representative and no documented training opt-out
- Interface and generation languages are not documented on the public pages, and refunds must be requested within five days, with discretionary and final decisions
Pricing & Plans
Alai operates on a freemium model. A permanent free plan, presented as Free FOREVER, is available with 300 non-renewing AI credits and requires no credit card. The lowest paid entry point is the Plus tier at USD 20 per month on monthly billing, followed by Pro at USD 30 per month and Ultra at USD 80 per month; a 20% discount is announced on annual billing. Every tier, including the free one, allows unlimited presentations, the metered resource being the AI credit rather than the number of decks, and API generations draw on the same balance. A bespoke deck design service delivered by the team starts at USD 1,500, and Enterprise terms are available on request from founders@getalai.com.
- unlimited presentations
- 300 AI credits that do not renew
- up to 10 AI slides per prompt
- basic access to elements and themes
- watermarks that cannot be removed
- regular support
- PDF and PPT export
- unlimited presentations
- 800 AI credits renewed every month
- up to 20 AI slides per prompt
- priority access to new elements and themes
- watermark-free slides
- priority support on Discord and by email
- PDF and PPT export
- unlimited presentations
- 1
- 600 AI credits renewed every month
- up to 50 AI slides per prompt
- priority access to new elements and themes
- watermark-free slides
- priority support handled by the founders
- PDF and PPT export
- unlimited presentations
- 5
- 000 AI credits renewed every month
- up to 50 AI slides per prompt
- priority access to new elements and themes
- watermark-free slides
- feature requests straight to the founders
- PDF and PPT export
- custom slide structures
- brand-locked themes
- advanced personalisation logic
- large-scale recurring generation
- dedicated support and an SLA
- Custom deck design service delivered by the Alai team — from USD 1
- 500
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how Alai handles your data.
GDPR overview
The privacy policy, effective 29 January 2026, includes a dedicated section on data protection rights under the GDPR: access, update, erasure, rectification, objection, restriction, portability and withdrawal of consent. Rights are exercised by email at founders@getalai.com, with possible identity verification, and the right to complain to an EEA supervisory authority is stated. Back to the core Inc. presents itself as data controller and its providers as processors. The cookie policy of 22 August 2025 repeats those rights and adds CCPA rights with a Do Not Sell or Share control; Do Not Track is honoured and CalOPPA compliance declared. Gaps remain: data is transferred to and processed in the United States with no transfer mechanism named, no Article 27 representative or data protection officer is appointed, and no data processing agreement is published. Alai never claims GDPR compliance in so many words.
Who owns the data?
The terms of service, effective 29 January 2026, state that you retain all rights to the content you submit, post or display through the service, and that you are responsible for protecting those rights. By posting it, you grant Back to the core Inc. a limited, non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce and display that content, solely to operate, maintain and improve the service and to deliver it to you and to the collaborators you choose. The publisher commits not to sell or licence user content to third parties for their own purposes. Everything belonging to the service itself, outside user content, remains the property of Back to the core Inc., and feedback sent to founders@getalai.com is assigned to the publisher.
Reuse rights
Because you keep every right to what you submit, the decks, infographics and images you generate can be reused, edited, published or sold without asking permission: nothing in the terms of service restricts commercial use of your own output, and PDF and PowerPoint export is available on every plan, including the free one. On its own side, Back to the core Inc. collects your email address, first and last name, and usage data such as IP address, browser type and version, pages visited, dates and durations, device identifiers and diagnostic data. Those are used to run and maintain the service, notify you of changes, enable interactive features, provide support, measure usage, detect incidents, handle billing and collection, send account and subscription notices, and, unless you object, send offers and news. Product improvement is described as the analysis of aggregated, de-identified data derived from user content and AI interactions, and the privacy policy states that user content is not shared with third parties for their own purposes. Named service providers include Cloudflare, PostHog, GitHub, Google Ads and Stripe; the cookie policy of 22 August 2025 also declares Google Analytics, social platforms and advertising partners, alongside Google Ads remarketing that can be opted out of in your Google settings. Card details are never stored and are handled by PCI-DSS compliant processors. Nothing is published about whether customer content is used to train AI models, and no training opt-out is documented.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
Alai publishes very little about where it hosts data. The privacy policy, effective 29 January 2026, states that users located outside the United States have their data, including personal data, transferred to and processed in the United States. No hosting provider or cloud vendor is named, neither AWS nor Google Cloud nor Azure, and no choice of hosting region or European data residency is offered. The named service providers likely to handle data are Cloudflare, PostHog, GitHub, Google Ads and Stripe. Back to the core Inc. commits to taking all steps reasonably necessary to ensure data is treated securely and states that no transfer will take place to an organisation or a country unless adequate controls are in place, while warning explicitly that no method of transmission or storage is completely secure. As a network fact rather than a published statement, the domain is served behind Cloudflare, on the anycast address 104.21.66.191 in AS13335. No security certification such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001 is displayed, and no data processing agreement is published.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting Alai.
- Free-plan AI credits do not renew: once the 300 credits are spent, the only way forward is a paid tier
- The pricing page shows two different credit grids depending on the monthly or annual toggle, with 800 against 600 for Plus and 1,600 against 1,200 for Pro, so check exactly what you are buying before paying
- The site's own comparison articles quote USD 16 and USD 25 while the pricing page shows USD 20 and USD 30; the lower figures are annual-billing equivalents, not current monthly prices
- Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each cycle, refunds must be requested within five days and refund decisions are discretionary and final, and the terms let the publisher change prices at the end of the current cycle
- No postal address and no locatable legal entity is published anywhere on the site, the only channel being email, which makes any dispute harder to pursue
- Nothing is stated about whether user content is used to train models and no opt-out exists; data is transferred to and processed in the United States with no named transfer mechanism, and the terms reserve the right to monitor and edit content published by users
- Leaning on a generator for every deck can erode the habit of structuring an argument yourself: choosing between four layouts is a design decision, not a thinking one, and a polished slide can hide a weak point. The API being in Beta also means the interface contract can change under a production workflow
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Very low for end users: Alai runs in the browser, so you create an account on app.getalai.com and start — no installation, no technical skill required, and the free plan asks for no credit card. Moderate for integrators: the API means generating a key in Settings > API, sending HTTP requests with a Bearer token and polling asynchronous operations, with Python, cURL and JavaScript examples in the documentation. The MCP route is simpler still: one command or configuration entry in Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf or ChatGPT, then OAuth, with no key to manage. Nothing to deploy or host.
Deployment
Integrations
Behind Alai
Fundraising
Social
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Alternatives
Tools that compete with or complement Alai.
Frequently asked questions
What does Alai do?
Is there a free plan?
How much does the cheapest paid plan cost?
Can I export my slides to PowerPoint?
Does Alai have an API?
Can I drive Alai from an AI assistant or an automation platform?
Where is my data processed?
Is my content used to train Alai's models?
Is there a mobile app?
How do I contact support?
Should you pick Alai?
Alai is a young, Y Combinator-backed product that bets on design quality rather than on doing everything. Its differentiators are concrete and verifiable: four layout options per slide instead of one, an AI that holds the context of the whole deck so edits stay coherent, diagrams that come out editable rather than flattened into images, spacing control that is genuinely granular, a PowerPoint export presented as loss-free, and engagement tracking on shared links.
The commercial model is easy to read. A permanent free plan with 300 AI credits lets you judge the output before paying anything, then Plus, Pro and Ultra sit at USD 20, 30 and 80 per month, with a 20% discount announced on annual billing. The metered resource is the AI credit, not the number of presentations, which suits regular users better than very heavy ones.
Technically, Alai is unusually open for a tool of its age: a Beta REST API, an MCP server that plugs into Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf and ChatGPT, A2A support, and Zapier, Make and viasocket connectors. Teams that need decks generated on a schedule — weekly recaps, agency reports, onboarding material — have a real path here.
The reservation sits on the paperwork rather than on the product. Legal and security documentation is minimal: no postal address anywhere on the site, no data processing agreement, no published certification, no Article 27 EU representative, and no documented way to keep your content out of model training. Data is transferred to and processed in the United States, with no choice of region. For an individual or a small team that is a manageable risk; for a regulated buyer it is the point to settle before signing.
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