Creating engaging landing pages from presentations is unheard of. Yet, with LastSlide, our innovative product that uses AI to automate this process, it's as easy as uploading your slides and letting technology do the rest. In this article, we'll explore the inner workings of LastSlide, the development process, the infrastructure behind it, and the role of AI in making it all happen.
If you have heard of LastSlide, check out this 90-second demo:
AI-Powered Landing Pages: How It Works
LastSlide is designed to transform presentations into landing pages in just a matter of seconds. Here's how the process works:
Content Extraction: The first step is extracting all the text and images from your presentation. We use PDF.js to scan every slide, ensuring that no information is left out. This comprehensive extraction covers presentations in various formats, including PDF, ppt, pptx, and .key.
AI-Driven Transformation: Once we've extracted the content, we use ChatGPT to generate structured data for our landing page template. The AI receives a simple prompt: “Take all this information and format it into our desired JSON format.” This approach allows us to automate the conversion process, resulting in a dynamic landing page that reflects the content and style of your original presentation.
Dynamic Landing Page Template: The structured data provided by ChatGPT is used to populate a flexible landing page template. The template is designed to adapt to different presentations, ensuring a consistent user experience whether your slides are text-heavy or more visual.
Costs and Infrastructure: Building with Vercel, Firebase, and OpenAI
To bring LastSlide to life, we needed a robust infrastructure that could handle the demands of AI processing and rapid content delivery. Here's an overview of the tools we used:
Vercel: We chose Vercel for its seamless deployment and serverless architecture. This allowed us to quickly deploy our application and ensure it could scale to meet demand.
Firebase: Firebase provided the backend infrastructure for file storage. Its real-time database and flexible cloud functions were key to integrating AI processes and managing user data.
OpenAI: We relied on OpenAI's ChatGPT for our AI-driven transformation. GPT-3.5 Turbo was our go-to model, offering a balance of speed and accuracy. It enabled us to create structured data quickly and at a relatively low cost compared to other AI models.
We also explored alternatives like AWS Lambda for serverless computing and Google Cloud for data storage. However, the combination of Vercel, Firebase, and OpenAI provided the optimal balance of performance, scalability, and cost-effectiveness.
The Development Journey: A Five-Month Process
Our five-month journey to create LastSlide involved four key steps, blending creativity, user-focused design, technical exploration, and rapid iteration.
Step 1: Idea Generation
We began with a workshop at viable to brainstorm product ideas. After reviewing many concepts, LastSlide was the clear winner due to its innovative approach to automating the transformation of presentations into landing pages.
Step 2: Product Design and User Validation
Next, we moved to product design, ensuring it was user-friendly and met real-world needs. We conducted user validation through feedback sessions, refining the design to improve usability and aligning it with user expectations.
Step 3: Proofs of Concept
To test the technical feasibility of our concept, we ran a series of proofs of concept. This stage pushed the boundaries of AI, exploring how we could effectively use ChatGPT to convert presentation content into structured data. We addressed technical challenges and confirmed the viability of the idea.
Step 4: Rapid Iteration and Performance Improvements
With a solid concept, we proceeded to implementation, focusing on rapid iteration to build the tool quickly. We prioritized performance optimization and fine-tuned the application through continuous testing and feedback.
The result is LastSlide, a product that embodies the power of AI and automation. It's a testament to what can be achieved with the right tools, a dedicated development team, and a clear vision.
The Future of LastSlide: Exploring New Possibilities
With LastSlide, we've made significant strides in exploring the opportunities a new era AI brings along. But we're not stopping there. We're exploring new ideas and are always open to supporting our customers in realizing theirs as well.
Stay tuned for more updates and products!