Your business communication may be harder than the work itself
You may already have the information your customers, staff, suppliers, or business partners need. The challenge is turning that information into something clear, attractive, and suitable for each audience. A product launch may need one format, a sales proposal another, and an internal briefing something simpler.
For many Malaysian SMEs, this work still depends on a busy owner or one staff member who knows how to use presentation, design, video, and document tools. When that person is unavailable, communication quality can drop. The recent acquisition of design startup Lica by presentation company Gamma points to a broader change: AI tools are moving beyond creating slides and towards producing complete, audience-specific visual communication.
That matters to you because better communication is not only about appearance. It can help customers understand your offer, help employees follow procedures, and help you present your business more consistently across WhatsApp, email, social media, websites, and meetings.
TL;DR
Gamma’s acquisition of Lica shows that AI presentation tools are expanding into personalised, multimodal communication, including design, video, images, and interactive content.
For Malaysian SMEs, the practical lesson is to prepare your brand information, business processes, and customer messages so AI tools can turn them into consistent content without removing human review.
What This Means
Lica began as an application that could turn screenshots and recordings into presentations and videos. It later focused on helping e-commerce companies create marketing videos that followed brand guidelines. Gamma, meanwhile, is known for helping users create presentations and has also started offering image generation.
Gamma announced that it acquired Lica to build a design research lab, with Lica’s co-founders leading the effort. The companies said they shared a goal of making visual communication easier. Lica had focused on research into communication methods such as video and design, while Gamma had built a large user distribution platform. Source: TechCrunch
In plain language, the direction is this: you may provide a short brief, a few product details, a recording, or an existing document, and an AI system may create different versions for different audiences. One version could be a customer presentation, another could be a social video, and another could be an internal training guide.
The important development is personalisation. AI tools are being designed to adjust communication style, visuals, structure, and format according to the audience. The same business message could be made more formal for a corporate buyer, more visual for a retail customer, or more instructional for a new employee.
Key insight: The value of AI design tools will depend less on creating attractive slides and more on helping you communicate the right message to the right audience in the right format.
How This Applies to Malaysian SMEs
1. Turn product knowledge into reusable sales material. Suppose you run a food manufacturer, renovation company, logistics firm, training centre, or wholesale business. You probably repeat the same information during sales conversations: what you provide, how the process works, who it serves, and what makes your service different. An AI design tool could help turn one approved set of information into a presentation, product explainer, proposal outline, or short video. You still need to check accuracy, but your team would not have to start from an empty page each time.
2. Create clearer content for different Malaysian audiences. A message written for a purchasing manager may not work for a consumer browsing Instagram. You may also need content in English, Bahasa Malaysia, Mandarin, or another language depending on your customers and staff. Personalised AI communication could help you adapt tone, structure, and visual emphasis for each audience. However, you should have a person review translations, cultural references, product claims, and technical terms before publishing.
3. Improve operational training. Many SMEs rely on informal instructions passed from one employee to another. This can create inconsistent service, especially when you have several outlets, delivery teams, sales representatives, or part-time staff. You could record a process, such as handling a customer complaint or preparing an order, then use AI-assisted design to create a step-by-step visual guide. A simple visual workflow may be easier for staff to follow than a long written document.
4. Make online selling more consistent. Malaysian customers often encounter businesses through a mixture of websites, marketplaces, social media, messaging apps, and printed materials. Each channel may have different content requirements. A central product brief can become several channel-specific assets while keeping the product name, specifications, benefits, and brand style aligned. This is particularly useful when a small marketing team manages many products or seasonal campaigns.
5. Support business proposals and partner discussions. If you are approaching a hotel, distributor, property group, school, government-linked organisation, or larger corporate buyer, a generic company profile may not be enough. You can prepare a master set of verified facts and create a focused presentation for each type of partner. The AI can help with layout and structure, while you decide which business problem to address and which evidence to include.
What the numbers suggest
The transaction is part of a wider increase in investment and consolidation among AI presentation companies. The following figures were reported in the source article:
| Company or event | Reported figure | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Lica funding | $4 million | Shows investor interest in AI-assisted design and communication. |
| Gamma funding | $68 million | Indicates significant backing for AI presentation platforms. |
| Gamma reported valuation | $2.1 billion | Suggests presentation software is being treated as a major AI category. |
| Prezent funding | $50 million across two rounds | Shows that several companies are competing in the same market. |
| Gamma user ambition | 100 million-plus users | Highlights the importance of distribution alongside product research. |
All figures in this table are reported by TechCrunch.
Practical Takeaways
- Build one approved information source. Keep current product descriptions, service details, staff procedures, frequently asked questions, logos, colours, and contact information in an organised location.
- Separate facts from marketing language. Mark which claims are verified and which statements need approval before publication.
- Create audience profiles. Note what a retail customer, corporate buyer, employee, supplier, or business partner needs to know.
- Start with one repeated task. Test AI-assisted design on a monthly product update, sales deck, onboarding guide, or customer explainer rather than changing every workflow at once.
- Keep human approval in the process. Check pricing, product specifications, legal statements, translation quality, images, names, dates, and customer information.
- Protect confidential material. Avoid placing sensitive customer records, private contracts, personal data, or unannounced business plans into a tool until you understand its data controls.
- Measure usefulness, not decoration. Ask whether customers understand the offer faster, whether staff make fewer mistakes, or whether your team spends less time rebuilding the same content.
A simple starting workflow
- Choose one business message you repeat often.
- Write down the intended audience and the action you want that audience to take.
- Collect the approved facts, images, examples, and brand rules.
- Use an AI design tool to produce two or three formats.
- Ask a staff member who understands the customer to review the result.
- Publish only after checking accuracy, tone, permissions, and privacy.
- Record which version performed best or generated fewer questions.
The Bigger Picture
The long-term change is not simply that AI will make presentations faster. Communication work is becoming more modular. Your business information may be stored once, then adapted into many formats as your audience and channel change.
This could reduce the gap between larger companies with dedicated design teams and smaller companies where one person handles sales, marketing, operations, and administration. However, the advantage will not come automatically from subscribing to a tool. It will come from having clear source information, reliable processes, strong brand rules, and sensible review procedures.
There is also a risk of sameness. If every business accepts the first AI-generated design, websites, proposals, and social posts may begin to look alike. Your judgment remains important: you know your customers, local context, service limitations, and reputation better than a general-purpose system.
For you as an SME owner, the sensible approach is practical experimentation. Identify communication work that is repetitive, prepare the information properly, test one workflow, and review the results with your team. AI-assisted design is becoming more capable, but your business knowledge is still what makes the message relevant and trustworthy.
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