How a question travels through the brain

Eight short scenes. The map on the left changes as you scroll; each scene carries a chapter of the product films, muted until you ask for sound.

Scene 1

The public record

Every federal contract and grant RTI has held since 2007, as USASpending.gov holds them: 3,914 of them, each with an agency, a start, an end and an amount.

Nothing here is inferred. Every dot is a public document.

The public record, poured. This is the public record of RTI's federal work. Three thousand, nine hundred and fourteen contracts and grants, as USASpending.gov holds them. Every one a public document, with a funder, a start, an end, and an amount.

Scene 2

Sorted by who signed it

Group the awards by the agency that signed them and the shape of the institution appears: Health and Human Services across its many offices, then the Environmental Protection Agency, USAID, Defense, Justice, and a long tail of others.

The map keeps those twelve agencies on its outer arc.

Sorted by who signed it. Sort them by the agency that signed them, and the shape of the institution appears. Health, across its many offices. Environment. International development. Defense. Justice. And a long tail of others.

Scene 3

What it holds

Around the ring: 45,315 publications, 4,997 news stories, 652 articles, the impact stories and pages from rti.org, 25 funders read out of that material, and 809 people.

Inside it: eight focus-area categories, the areas under them, and every person clustered by the area they work in.

What it holds. Forty-five thousand, three hundred and fifteen publications. Eight hundred and nine people. Three thousand, nine hundred and fourteen federal contracts and grants. Read as of September eighth, twenty twenty-six.

Scene 4

Ask it something real

Type a question the way you would ask a colleague, or press the orb and say it.

The question lights the parts of the map its words name before the brain has read a single record.

Ask it something real. This is the RTI Brain. Everything RTI has published, in one place you can ask. Ask it the way you would ask a colleague. So ask it something real.

Scene 5

Watch it think

Each lookup lights the ring segment it reads and places what it found where the data puts it: a publication beside its area, a person at their own dot, an award beside the agency that signed it.

The trail on the right is the same thing in words.

1.Read the question

Watch it think. Watch how it works. First it reads the question. Then it searches the people. Then the federal award record behind them. It reads the profiles it found, and checks the awards once more. Every fact it uses comes from rti.org or USASpending.gov, and from nowhere else.

Scene 6

The answer, sourced

The answer arrives with a numbered marker after each claim a source backs, and the same numbers land on the map.

Every source is a link into rti.org or USASpending.gov, and any answer downloads as a Word document ready for a proposal.

The answer, sourced. And then, the answer. Two names, with the awards behind them, and the work each one leads. Then the rest of the bench. Every source is a link. Into rti.org, and into USASpending.gov.

It travels. And because a good answer should travel, it exports. One click, and it is a Word document. The answer, and its sources, ready to drop into a proposal.

Scene 7

Or say it

The orb opens a live line. The brain answers in its own voice and puts the whole cited answer on the screen, placed on the map like any other.

Interrupt it, follow up, end the call when you have what you need.

Or say it. Or press the orb, and say it. The line opens, and it stays open. There is no button to hold. Ask the way you would ask across a desk. What have we delivered for EPA on air quality since 2020?

In its own voice. Since 2020, RTI has been one of EPA's most active research and technical support partners on air quality, holding multiple contracts under the EARTH vehicle for the Office of Air and Radiation, plus greenhouse gas reporting work worth hundreds of millions in total EPA awards. In July 2022, EPA's Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) awarded RTI a five-year EARTH Blanket Purchase Agreement with a ceiling of $5.7 billion, covering data analysis, modeling, policy support, and air quality research through 2027.

Scene 8

Where it stops

Everything it says is sourced. Every gap is named. Proposals, project records, staffing and utilization sit behind RTI\u2019s login, and none of it is here.

That is the boundary the brain keeps, and the reason every answer can be checked.

Where it stops. That is the boundary the brain keeps. Everything it says is sourced. Every gap is named. The rest sits behind RTI's login, and none of it is here.

Ask your own See what it holds

Film chapters are cut from the RTI Brain product films; every fact in them was pulled from the live product. The trail replayed in scenes 5 and 6 is a real answer captured once from the brain.