Google chief executive Sundar Pichai is one of the smartest technologists on the planet, but he earns high marks for communicating extremely complex ideas in very simple terms.
There’s no question Pichai is whip-smart. He received his bachelor’s degree in metallurgical engineering from the highly competitive Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). The school admits less than 2% of its 500,000 applicants (compared to Harvard’s 6% admission rate). Pichai also earned advanced degrees from Stanford and Wharton in material sciences, engineering and business. But while Pichai’s world involves big data and highly complex engineering feats, as a leader he stands out as an effective communicator, dissecting complexity in simple words and pictures.
This week Google, an Alphabet Company, introduced a new strategy to control hardware and software in a range of devices tied together with Google Assistant, the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) technology. The product launch was streamed live on YouTube. You can watch it here. The first 15 minutes of Sundar Pichai’s presentation is a master class in presentation skills.
The first thing you’ll notice about the slides is white space. There are very few words on each slide. Just as professional ad designers do not fill up the entire page with text, neither do effective presenters clutter their slides with extraneous words or numbers.
For example, Pichai delivered the main theme of the keynote when he said, “We are heading from a mobile first to an AI first world.” Pichai’s slide contained just five words:
Mobile First To AI First
Pichai transitioned to a discussion of “image captioning” to demonstrate how machine learning and artificial intelligence influences Google’s new products. Not only were his slides simple, so was his explanation.
According to Pichai, “Image capturing is how computers try to make sense of the images they look at.” Simple words, no jargon. Pichai then explained that—just two years ago— the accuracy of image capturing was just over 89%. Today the quality of Google’s machine learning technology is close to 94%. While he spoke, the slide displayed the two numbers and nothing else. Pichai knows better than to clutter his slides with too much data.
The Slide Read
89.6% 93.9%
2014 Today
Next came the explanation. The two numbers don’t mean much to most casual observers, so Pichai used a tangible example.
“Four percent may not sound like much. But every percentage translates into meaning differences for our users,” Pichai explained as he advanced to a slide of a train. That’s it. Just the picture. “For example, if you take a look at the picture behind me, about two years ago we used to understand this as a train is sitting on the tracks,” he continued. “Today we understand colors, so we describe it as a blue and yellow train traveling down train tracks.”
On the slide, text appeared on both sides of the train photo. The words simply read:
Before
“A train is sitting on the tracks”
After
“A blue and yellow train traveling down the train tracks”
Pichai used a second example, a photo of two bears. He said that two years ago, AI technology would have interpreted the photo as a brown bear sitting swimming in the water. Today the system can count and would understand that the photo shows two brown bears sitting on top of rocks.
What does all of this have to do with the user experience on Google’s new smartphone, Pixel?
“These advances help Google photos find the exact pictures you’re looking for, a better assistant for you,” Pichai explained.
Simple slides and explanations were a hallmark of the entire presentation, reflected in each of the speakers who followed Pichai on stage to introduce products including a smartphone, a virtual reality headset, and a voice-activated home speaker.
Pichai’s presentation is an example of Google’s commitment to storytelling with data. As I wrote in a previous article, senior executives at Google realize that consumers are not inspired by data alone. They’re inspired by how the data, or products, transform their lives for the better. To connect with consumers, Google’s leaders keep their slides and their words remarkably simple.