A written report is a document of record; a presentation is an instrument of persuasion. Your goal is not to read slides aloud but to guide an audience through a narrative that culminates in a clear call to action. Effective presentation templates are frameworks for this storytelling, designed to be adapted, not blindly followed.
The Core Principle: Audience-Centric Narrative
Before you create a single slide, you must answer one question: “Who is in the room, and what do they need to do after I finish speaking?” The answer dictates everything—the level of technical detail, the focus on business impact, and the specific recommendations you highlight. A single, monolithic deck rarely serves all audiences well.
Every good presentation follows a narrative arc:
- The Setup: What system did we test and why? What was the threat model?
- The Conflict: What critical vulnerabilities did we uncover? How did we exploit them?
- The Climax: What was the ultimate impact of the exploit? (e.g., data exfiltration, model takeover).
- The Resolution: What must be done to mitigate these risks and strengthen defenses?
Template Structures by Audience
Here are three battle-tested structures. Use them as a starting point to build decks that resonate with their intended audience.
1. The Executive Leadership Deck (The “So What?” Deck)
This presentation is about business risk, not technical minutiae. Your objective is to secure buy-in and resources for remediation. Keep it concise, high-level, and focused on impact.
- Slide 1: Title Slide – Project Name, Date, Presenters.
- Slide 2: Executive Summary (BLUF) – The “Bottom Line Up Front.” State the most critical finding and its business impact in one or two sentences.
- Slide 3: Key Risk Themes – Group findings into 2-4 strategic themes (e.g., “Inadequate Input Filtering,” “Susceptibility to Data Poisoning”).
- Slide 4: Finding 1: The Business Impact – Visualize the impact of your most significant finding. Use charts or simple diagrams, not code. Quantify where possible (e.g., “Potential for X million user records exposed”).
- Slide 5: Finding 2: The Competitive Risk – Frame another key finding in terms of reputational damage or competitive disadvantage.
- Slide 6: Strategic Recommendations – High-level actions. Focus on “what,” not “how.” (e.g., “Implement a centralized AI security monitoring solution,” “Invest in adversarial training for critical models”).
- Slide 7: Proposed Roadmap & Resource Needs – A simple timeline showing key remediation milestones and the teams/budget required.
- Slide 8: Q&A / Next Steps
2. The Technical Team Deck (The “How?” Deck)
This is for the engineers, data scientists, and developers who will implement the fixes. Here, technical depth is paramount. Your objective is to provide clear, unambiguous, and actionable guidance.
- Slide 1: Title Slide
- Slide 2: Engagement Scope & Methodology – Remind the team of the rules of engagement and the technical approach.
- Slide 3: Attack Chain Walkthrough – A detailed diagram showing the steps of a successful, high-impact exploit.
- Slide 4-X: Detailed Findings (One per slide or small group)
- Vulnerability: Clear name (e.g., “Indirect Prompt Injection via Document Processing”).
- Proof of Concept: A clean screenshot or a short, commented code snippet.
- Root Cause Analysis: Explain *why* the vulnerability exists (e.g., “Lack of sanitization on parsed PDF text content”).
- Tactical Recommendation: A specific, actionable fix (e.g., “Implement a character-level denylist and context-aware output encoding”).
- Slide X+1: Systemic Issues – Discuss patterns of weakness observed across multiple components.
- Slide X+2: Tooling & Scripts – Share any custom tools developed that can be used for regression testing.
- Slide X+3: Q&A / Open Discussion
Essential Slide Archetypes
Regardless of the audience, certain types of slides are universally effective for communicating the results of an AI red team engagement.
The Attack Path Diagram
A visual narrative is more powerful than a wall of text. This diagram should clearly show how an attacker moves from an initial foothold to achieving their objective. It contextualizes individual vulnerabilities within a larger attack story.
The Recommendations Matrix
For technical and management audiences, a summary table that maps findings to actions is invaluable. It serves as a quick reference and a project management tool for the remediation phase. Prioritize ruthlessly.
| Finding ID | Vulnerability | Risk | Recommendation | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI-001 | Indirect Prompt Injection via File Upload | Critical | Implement strict input sanitization on parsed text from all uploaded documents. | AppDev Team |
| AI-002 | Model Evasion via Unicode Obfuscation | High | Normalize all user inputs to a standard character set (e.g., NFKC) before processing. | ML Ops |
| AI-003 | Excessive Agency in Function Calling | High | Require user confirmation for any function call that performs a state-changing action. | AppDev Team |
Common Presentation Pitfalls to Avoid
Creating an impactful presentation is as much about avoiding mistakes as it is about including the right content.
- The Wall of Text: If your audience is reading your slides, they are not listening to you. Use keywords, phrases, and visuals. Your narration provides the detail.
- One Deck to Rule Them All: A presentation that tries to satisfy both the C-suite and the senior engineers will fail at both. Create separate, tailored versions.
- Presenting Findings, Not Risks: Don’t just state “We found a prompt injection vulnerability.” Instead, say “We discovered a flaw that allows an attacker to steal customer data by uploading a crafted document.” Connect every finding to its business impact.
- Lack of a Clear “Ask”: End your presentation with a clear and specific call to action. What do you want the audience to do? Approve a budget? Assign resources? Prioritize a fix? Be direct.