AI critiques
Storymakers reviews of every deck.
Each deck reviewed by an AI editor through the Storymakers lens — narrative arc, opening hook, closing call-to-action, and action-title quality. With a one-line verdict, top strengths and weaknesses, and three concrete fixes per deck.
1086 reviewed decks
· mean 59.8
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most common opening verb across 3405 suggestions↑ Top 5 on opening
- 88 Forsyningssektorens Effektiviseringspotentiale McKinsey · 2016
- 88 American Express Investor Day 2024 McKinsey · 2024
- 85 Accenture Consumer Value Report 2021 Accenture · 2021
- 85 Cloud-migration opportunity: Business value grows, but missteps abound McKinsey · 2021
- 84 Global Pricing Sales Study 2017 SimonKucher · 2017
↓ Toughest critiques
“ ” Verdict gallery
- “Competent consulting thought-leadership report with a strong quantified hook and three-pillar structure, but weakened by redundant titling and a missing call-to-action — use the opening bookend (p.2-3) and case-study pairing pattern as teaching examples, not the overall structure.” — Accenture, 2023
- “A well-crafted thought-leadership narrative with a strong opening and a memorable proprietary framework, but it trails off into case studies and a soft CTA instead of landing a prescriptive recommendation — use the opening and quantified-stakes sections as teaching examples, not the closing.” — Accenture, 2020
- “A disciplined Accenture thought-leadership deck with a genuine SCQA spine and a clean five-pillar recommend+case-study build — use the divider ladder and pillar pairing as a teaching example, but not the soft landing or the label-style analytical titles.” — Accenture, 2022
- “A tight, well-titled BCG point-of-view deck with a textbook 'lead-with-the-answer' opening and a consistent five-imperatives scaffold, but the diagnosis act is too thin and the closing slips into topic-label territory — use p.3-p.7 as a teaching example of action-title discipline, not the deck as a full SCQA exemplar.” — BCG, 2020
- “Well-scaffolded problem-diagnosis deck with strong action titles and MECE dividers, but the 'answer' act is thin and there's no explicit recommendation — use the opening and divider chain as a Storymakers teaching example, not the resolution.” — BCG, 2019
- “Short analytical index-release with a strong hook and mostly declarative titles but no resolution - use p.1-p.2 as an opening-hook exemplar, not as a full Storymakers arc.” — BCG, 2024
- “A solid evidence-driven BCG research deck with strong action titles and parallel pillar structure, but it trails off into an appendix instead of closing the loop — use the analytical middle as a teaching example, not the ending.” — BCG, 2025
- “A strong answer-first sizing report with disciplined declarative titles and clean MECE pillars, but it stops at diagnosis — use p4-5 and the segment-sizing run as Storymakers exemplars, not the closing.” — Bain, 2016
All reviewed decks
1086 matching · page 15 / 46
68
opening
True-Luxury Global Consumer Insights 7th Edition
“A well-structured BCG/Altagamma research-insights deck with above-average action titles and a clean three-pillar body, but it buries its recommendation in a single closing slide — use it as a teaching example for pillar architecture and quantified titles, not for answer-first storytelling.”
↓ No answer-first slide: the deck takes until p.31 to surface recommendations, and even then the title ('several priority investments') is a hedge rather than a claim
68
opening
True-Luxury Global Consumer Insights 9th Edition
“A solid analytical report with strong middle-act action titles, but it ends on a framework instead of a recommendation and hides its thesis behind scene-setting — use its analytical slides (p.8, p.22-25) as teaching examples, not its overall structure.”
↓ Resolution act is a framework, not a recommendation — p.32-33 tell brands to 'decide which role to play' without naming which roles or priorities
68
opening
Port of LA Clean Truck Program
“A solid 2008 BCG business-case deck with a competent analytical spine and one exemplary action title at p.15, but the buried thesis and post-conclusion option dumps make it a teaching example for analytical rigor, not for Storymakers narrative structure.”
↓ Structural misplacement: 'Agenda' divider at p.17 after the 'Conclusion' at p.16 inverts deck logic — option deep-dives (p.18-20) should precede, not follow, the recommendation
68
opening
Victorias Creative and Cultural Economy Fact Pack
“A well-scaffolded BCG fact pack with disciplined quantified titles and clean MECE pillars, but it ends on a question list instead of a recommendation — use the data chapters (p.12-22, p.39-51) as a teaching example of insight-bearing titles, not the overall arc.”
↓ No clear recommendation or decision slide — the deck ends on p.57 'Questions to be answered' and then flows into appendix, which is a fact-pack tell, not a consulting answer
68
opening
e-Conomy SEA 2023 report: Thailand
“A competent market-intelligence chapter with strong insight-titling but no SCQA arc and no recommendation — use slides 3, 5, and 6 as a teaching example of quantified action titles, not the deck structure.”
↓ No complication or recommendation — the deck is S → A with no C or R, so it reads as a briefing not a story
68
opening
e-Conomy SEA 2023 report: Vietnam
“A descriptive country-brief excerpt with strong action titles but no resolution act — useful as a teaching example for insight-bearing titles and market-sizing pacing, not for full Storymakers arc structure.”
↓ No recommendation or CTA — the deck ends on a funding data point (p.7) rather than an implication or next move
68
opening
Rise of Agentic AI Report
“A well-structured research report with solid MECE pillar dividers and strong data titles, but weakened by 20+ quote/filler slides that reuse the report title as a headline and a 25-slide firm-marketing tail that buries the client imperative — use its section architecture (pp 16/22/46/60/68) as a teaching example, not its openings or its close.”
↓ Roughly 1-in-5 slides use 'Rise of agentic AI: How trust is the key to human-AI collaboration' as the headline (quote and transition pages), abdicating the action-title discipline and forcing the callout to carry the argument
68
opening
Tested, Trusted, Transformed An exploration of the Corporate Affairs Function and its Leaders
“A competently structured research report with a memorable title device and a strong Five Maxims close, but titles carry topics not insights and the middle lacks narrative tension — use the bookend thesis and Five Maxims as teaching examples, not the interior title discipline.”
↓ Action titles are overwhelmingly questions or topic labels rather than insights (p.9, p.11, p.13, p.14, p.25) — a reader skimming the title stream cannot reconstruct the argument
68
opening
European Banking Barometer 2015
“A competently written industry barometer with strong per-slide action titles and a tight three-message exec summary, but it buries no recommendation and ends on 'Contacts' — use it as a teaching example for declarative titles and connector-title chaining, not for end-to-end Storymakers arc.”
↓ No recommendation or implications slide — the deck ends on p44 data and then 'Contacts'/'Appendix', with zero call-to-action
68
opening
Pulse of Fintech H1 2021
“A well-organized analytical reference report with strong stat-led titles in its core, but it is a market-data digest rather than a Storymakers deck — use its action titles and stat-led section dividers as a teaching example, not its overall structure or its non-existent close.”
↓ No resolution act — deck ends on p.66 data table then About/Contacts; zero 'so what should investors/operators do' slide
68
opening
Infrastructure beyond COVID-19
“A well-titled, metric-rich sectoral reference document whose analytical sections would make a strong Storymakers teaching example for action titles and mini-arcs — but it fails as an argument because it ends on 'Future directions: Waste' instead of a unified national recommendation.”
↓ No overall closing synthesis — the deck terminates on 'Future directions: Waste' (p.187) then a disclaimer, burying the national recommendation that p.6-7 promised
68
opening
A global view of how consumer behavior is changing amid COVID-19
“A well-titled McKinsey research briefing with a clean setup and a framework promise on p.4, but it is an S-C-A deck with the R amputated — useful as a teaching example for action-title craft, not for full Storymakers arc.”
↓ No resolution act — deck ends on p.18 heatmap + p.19 disclaimer with zero recommendations, implications, or next steps
68
opening
Covid 19: Briefing Materials
“A high-quality McKinsey briefing document with strong analytical craftsmanship and action-title discipline, but structurally a report not a story — useful as a teaching example for slide-level writing and quantified callouts, not for Storymakers narrative architecture.”
↓ Recommendation is buried at p.41-42 and limited to 'operating-model speed' — too narrow relative to the humanitarian, economic, and operational problems framed earlier
68
opening
Challenges in Mining Scarcity Opportunity
“A solid analytical pack with McKinsey-grade quantified action titles, but it is two decks stapled together with a buried recommendation - use the middle analysis slides as a teaching example for action titles, not the overall structure.”
↓ Deck appears to be two packs glued together: a productivity/automation story (p.1-11) and a rare-earth market story (p.31-41), with a 'BACKUP' divider (p.12) and a misplaced 'Executive summary' (p.13) sitting between them
68
opening
Technology Trends Outlook 2022
“A high-quality 14-trend research compendium with a strong data-led opening but no closing synthesis or recommendation — use the per-trend micro-template and the p.3/p.5 opening as teaching examples, not the overall deck structure.”
↓ No closing synthesis — the deck terminates on the last trend's appendix (pp.180-184) with zero cross-trend wrap-up or recommendation
68
opening
PwC’s 2019 actuarial robotic process automation (RPA) survey report
“A competent survey-results report with strong quantified callouts but topic-label titles and no recommendation — useful as a teaching example of how good data can be undermined by a missing close and absent action titles.”
↓ Four consecutive slides (p.7-10) share the title 'Use of RPA within different functions in the insurer (continued)' — a textbook topic-dump anti-pattern with zero MECE signaling
68
opening
Copernicus Market report
“A meticulously quantified, MECE-by-sector EU market study with strong evidence but no resolution - useful as a teaching example of consistent sectoral templates and metric discipline, not of Storymakers narrative arc.”
↓ No closing recommendation, synthesis, or call-to-action - the deck stops at Security case studies and slides into appendix (pp. 156-164).
68
opening
Southeast Asia’s digital consumers: A new stage of evolution
“A well-resourced thought-leadership report with a real S->C->A->R spine and many strong metric-anchored action titles, but the diluted opening, sprawling analytical middle and trailing close keep it as a solid B+ Storymakers exemplar rather than a top-tier one - useful as a teaching example for action-titles and pillar dividers, less so for opening/closing discipline.”
↓ Three consecutive slides titled 'Introduction' (pp 6-8) waste the opening real estate after a strong p5 hook
68
opening
PwC Women in Work 2025
“A solid PwC research-index publication with strong action titles in its scenario build (p.24-26) and a genuine productivity-angle hook, but it is structurally an analytical report, not a Storymakers deck — use slides 14 and 24-26 as exemplars for quantified action titles, never as a model for closings, because there is no recommendation and the document ends in an appendix.”
↓ No recommendation or call-to-action slide anywhere in 50 pages — the deck ends on p.50 with a contact card immediately after the technical appendix
68
opening
China Luxury Digital Playbook
“A well-structured BCG x Tencent market study with exemplary quantified action titles in its analytical spine, but it loses Storymakers discipline exactly where it matters most - the recommendation titles go topic-label and the deck ends in 'Thank you'; use the middle (p.4-28) as a teaching example of action-title craft, not the closing.”
↓ Recommendation slides (p.43-45) are topic labels, not insights - the deck teaches action titles for 40 pages then abandons them at the punchline
68
opening
Perspectives on WMATA's ridership
“A competent analytical build-up that diagnoses the ridership problem well but ends on a question instead of an answer — useful as a teaching example of retrospective diagnosis and action titles, not as a full Storymakers arc.”
↓ No recommendation act: p.27 'What does this all mean for WMATA's ridership?' is the final content slide and it asks rather than answers
68
opening
April Macro Brief: Special edition Tariff distress
“A strong analytical brief with insight-bearing titles and clean MECE spine, but the recommendation is compressed and generic - use the tariff analysis (p.12-19, p.22-25, p.36) as a Storymakers exemplar of action-title discipline, not the resolution arc.”
↓ Recommendation is compressed into p.38-40 and reads as bolt-on consulting boilerplate ('resiliency', 'scenario planning', 'productivity') rather than tariff-specific moves earned by the preceding 30 slides of analysis
68
opening
When will the knot finally unravel?
“A competent short market-update deck with disciplined quantified titles and a consistent thesis line, but it stops at outlook and never delivers a recommendation — useful as a Storymakers exemplar for action-title craft, not for full S-C-Q-A arc.”
↓ No recommendation or call-to-action slide — p.7's outlook is the de facto close, followed by filler (p.8) and front-matter (p.9)
68
opening
Bold moves: Leading Southeast Asia's next wave of consumer growth
“A well-crafted Bain trend report with strong action titles and transitions, but structurally a seven-trend analytical survey rather than a single-thesis recommendation deck - use it as an exemplar for title writing and section bridges, not for narrative arc or MECE pillar design.”
↓ Thesis ('bold moves') is buried until the p.10 divider - the first 9 slides read as a market primer with no argument