Briefing

The Briefing is the scan’s narrative edition: a long-form analyst read of the same snapshot the Overview summarises in panels. It is written for handing to someone — a board member, a general counsel, your future self — and for reading top to bottom rather than scanning.

It is the one tab that is conditional: Briefing appears in the tab bar only when the loaded snapshot carries an executive narrative. Load a scan without one and the tab is not there.

The page is laid out like an article: a masthead, a measured reading column, and an analyst’s margin down the right with the reading index, a pull quote and the audio companion. On mobile the margin dissolves into the flow — contents chips under the standfirst, the pull quote inset after the opening, and the audio bar pinned to the bottom.

The masthead

Kicker — Analyst Briefing plus the scan’s topics.
Headline and standfirst — an edited headline and a one-sentence framing such as “Three priorities for the quarter ahead — EU · UK.” Older snapshots that predate the edited fields fall back to the scan title and a counts sentence; nothing is invented.
LISTEN — the audio chip: ▶ LISTEN · 9 MIN. See The audio edition.

The reading index

In this briefing lists every section — Introduction, the numbered priorities, then the trailing sections (Trends, Key deadlines, Watch list). It is a scroll-spy: the current section is highlighted, finished sections gain a tick, and clicking an entry jumps to it. On mobile the same index renders as chips under the standfirst.

The reading column

The narrative is divided by ruled section dividers:

Introduction — the framing, opened in the house all-caps style.
Priorities — numbered PRIORITY 01, 02, … Each divider can carry a right-hand tag naming the jurisdiction and instrument (for example EU · MiCA); each section is a headline plus argued prose.
Trailing sections — Trends (tagged CROSS-CUTTING), Key deadlines (tagged NEXT 12 MONTHS) and Watch list (tagged with its item count).
BOTTOM LINE — the tight closing line, when the scan produced one.
End matter — a colophon and the ruled source list backing the citations above.

Citations

Sentences carry small numbered markers — [3] — placed by the scan’s citation audit. Hover or tap a marker to see the backing source’s title, host and tier; consecutive markers collapse into one. A dimmed or unnumbered marker means attribution was unavailable for that sentence — the sentence stands, unattributed, rather than being silently dressed up.

Citation markers are an attributor, not a fact-checker: they tell you which retrieved source backs a sentence, not that the source is correct. The Sources tab is where you interrogate the sources themselves — verification badges, confidence chips and the audit’s working.

The pull quote

When the scan produced one, the margin carries a pull quote with a sentiment attribution (for example Sentiment — Tightening). It is the same sentiment read the Overview hero shows; the quote itself appears only here.

The audio edition

The briefing has a spoken edition. Press LISTEN in the masthead (or the play control in the margin’s audio bar) to start it; the bar shows elapsed and total time and is seekable.

When the audio was generated with a section map for this exact snapshot, the bar becomes chaptered: one segment per section, named with the same labels as the reading index (plus a final Bottom line chapter when one was spoken). Click a chapter to jump. When no matching map exists — older artefacts, or audio whose section map no longer lines up with the narrative on screen, as can happen just after a language switch — the bar degrades honestly to a plain seek bar rather than showing wrong chapters.

Two behaviours worth knowing:

Leaving the Briefing tab stops the readout — the audio belongs to the reading surface, it does not follow you around the app.
Switching the dashboard language switches the narrative, and the audio edition follows the language where one exists.

Actions

In the margin (footer row on mobile):

Export PDF — opens the export menu to produce the document edition. The full artefact lineup lives in Studio.
Send — jumps to Studio with this snapshot in hand.
Copy link — copies the current address to your clipboard.

Worked example: a Monday read

Your weekly scan has landed and the standfirst says “Four priorities for the quarter ahead — EU · UK.”

Skim the reading index: four priorities, tagged EU · MiCA, EU · DORA, UK · CP24/xx, EU/UK · AI. That is the shape of the week.
Press LISTEN and let the Introduction chapter play while you scan the agenda on another screen — then seek straight to the UK consultation’s chapter (fourth on the bar, after Introduction), because that one is yours.
Read that priority in full. A claim about scope looks surprising — tap its [5] marker, open the source, and confirm the wording against the regulator’s own page.
Finish with BOTTOM LINE, then Export PDF for the compliance channel.

Ten minutes, and every claim you forwarded is one tap from its source.

A non-obvious tip

The standfirst’s priority count is a fast quality check on cadence. If last week’s briefing had three priorities and this week’s has six, something moved — open the Overview’s Change Monitor before reading further, and let the confirmed-events list tell you whether it is genuine regulator activity or a widened watch list.

Where next

Overview — the panel edition of the same scan.
Sources — interrogate the citations’ sources.
Studio — turn the briefing into shareable artefacts.