Perspectives Engine

In 1994, Bill Gates (opens in new tab) wanted to show people how much information could fit on a CD-ROM. Instead of using the then unfamiliar measurement of 700 megabytes, he published a picture of himself suspended in the treetops (opens in new tab) above giant stacks of paper hundreds of feet tall—the amount of pages a CD can hold. Bill’s photograph put an unfamiliar number into perspective to help people grasp it.

Our research has shown that adding relatable references for large numerical values makes information easier to understand and increases retention. The Perspective Engine is an AI tool that automates the process of putting giant and unfamiliar numbers into familiar context. It is already live in Bing (opens in new tab), where it improves the answer to questions like “How big is Afghanistan?” by supplementing “251,827 square miles” with the context “about the size of Texas” for US readers. It puts demographics, nutritional information, fuel efficiency and much more into perspective.

Perspective Engine is integrated into PowerPoint Designer and can recognize when a slide contains a large number that might be difficult to interpret and put the number into context by automatically augmenting the text with a corresponding perspective to help your audience understand the slide better.

Perspectives are also available in Word Online as part of Word’s Editor feature.