The documented answer
Turnitin publishes the file requirements for an AI writing report. The accepted formats are .docx, .pdf, .txt and .rtf. PowerPoint does not appear.
That is a limit on the AI writing report specifically. It is not a statement about Turnitin’s similarity checking, which handles a wider set of files — and the two features get treated as one thing constantly. A deck can go through one and not the other.
The second limit, which matters more than people expect
Even converted to an accepted format, a deck has to clear at least 300 words of prose text. Slides are usually bullets, headings and fragments. A twenty-slide deck can be a long document and still not be 300 words of prose.
So “export it to PDF” is not the workaround it looks like. PDF is accepted and the file will be read, but the word floor applies to what was actually written, and a document of fragments frequently does not reach it.
What this does not mean
It does not mean slides are a safe place to use AI, and we are not going to pretend the question was not being asked that way. A documented gap in one vendor’s report is not permission. Your institution’s rules apply to your work whatever format it is in, an assessor can read a deck themselves, and speaker notes or a script pasted into a different tool are outside all of the limits above.
The useful version of this fact is defensive. If a score is being quoted at you for a presentation, ask which tool produced it and from what text — because Turnitin’s own documentation says its AI report does not accept the file.
Related
- AI detection and PDFs — accepted, with limits
- Turnitin, reviewed
- If you have been accused