Guides · Nov 6, 2026
Why an interactive HTML beats a PowerPoint in a meeting
An interactive HTML lets a meeting test every what-if and decide before anyone leaves. Here is an imagined finance meeting, page by page.
Built by Simon + Claude
TL;DR
- An interactive HTML lets the room work on the numbers together. Each person moves one number, the euro, the loan or the share of euros locked, and cash for the year follows on screen.
- Questions get answered while everyone is still in the room, and AI can retell the same numbers for the CFO, the board and sales in words each of them uses.
- Pick your next meeting where someone will ask what if, and ask Claude to turn the spreadsheet into a meeting HTML with five pages, with the sums checked in Python and Excel.
Imagine an important meeting in a company, between the finance team, the treasurer and the CFO. The company sells abroad in euros and is about to buy a new production line.
The meeting has three questions to answer. How much of the line should we borrow for, how much of next year's euros should we lock, and does cash hold all year?
The team could bring a deck, and every what-if from the CFO would end in "we will come back to you". Instead they bring a five-page HTML file, built in Claude from the spreadsheet they already use. It looks like slides, but every number on it can be moved while the CFO is in the room.
Earlier in my career I worked in ship finance and investment analysis, on the side of the table that prepares the numbers for meetings like this one.
If HTML is new to you, start with the magic powers of HTML.
Open with the question
The first page holds one question and nothing else. Everyone in the room reads the same sentence before any numbers appear, so the whole meeting works on one decision.
Put the options side by side
Page two sets three loan sizes side by side. Borrowing more keeps more cash in the bank, and it costs more interest every year. On a slide those would be three fixed columns. Here anyone in the room can move the interest rate, and all three cards change at once.
How much of the line do we borrow?
Line NOK 250m · Locked 50% · Euro 11.50
Page two of the meeting HTML, example data. The line costs NOK 250m, half of next year's euros are locked and the euro stays at 11.50. Interest rate 6%. Borrowing 40%, NOK 100m, costs NOK 6.0m in interest a year, and cash is lowest at NOK 62m in September. Borrowing 60%, NOK 150m, costs NOK 9.0m in interest a year, and cash is lowest at NOK 107m in June. Borrowing 100%, NOK 250m, costs NOK 15.0m in interest a year, and cash is lowest at NOK 128m in January. None of the three goes below the NOK 50m floor. Borrowing 40 per cent is the team's proposal.
Explain what moves the result
Page three is about the euros that come in next year. The company expects EUR 60 million in sales, planned at NOK 11.50 per euro. If the euro weakens, those euros turn into fewer kroner.
Locking means agreeing a rate today for part of next year's euros. The locked part is then worth the same in kroner whatever the euro does. That works in both directions, so a stronger euro gives less gain on the locked part too.
At 10.50 with 50 per cent locked, NOK 30 million less than plan.
Page three of the meeting HTML, with example numbers. A chart of kroner against plan over the year, in NOK million, for a euro rate from 10.50 to 12.50 kroner. Every line passes through zero at the plan rate of 11.50. Grey lines show 0, 50 and 80 per cent locked, and the highlighted line shows the share on the slider, 50 per cent to start with. Unlocked, a euro at 10.50 gives NOK 60 million less than plan, and with half locked NOK 30 million less. At 12.00, half locked gives NOK 15 million more, where unlocked would give 30. The more that is locked, the flatter the line, so a weaker euro costs less and a stronger euro gives less gain.
Answer the what-if in the room
Page four takes the loan from page two and the locked share from page three and shows cash month by month. With the team's proposal, borrow 40 per cent and lock half, cash is lowest in September, at NOK 62 million.
Then the CFO asks what happens if the euro falls to 10.50, and drags it there. September drops to NOK 39 million, below the floor. Nobody has to promise to come back with an answer. The room tries locking more and borrowing more, right there.
Does cash stay above the floor all year?
Line chart of the company's cash at the end of each month, January to December, example data, with a dashed floor at NOK 50m. The ink line is lowest in September at NOK 62m. A fainter line for the euro at 10.50 is lowest at NOK 39m, below the floor, marked in the accent colour.
Every change shows on the same chart, so the room can weigh more interest against more certainty and agree on a mix that holds even in the worst case.
Write the decision into the page
The last page writes down what the room chose, the worst case it tested and who does what by when. It also writes down the settings, so anyone who opens the page next week sees exactly what was agreed.
PowerPoint deck or HTML page
With the page open, everyone looks at the same number, so the room spends its thinking on what to do about it.
A deck still fits when the story is fixed and goes out ahead of the meeting. How to make great presentations in HTML shows how to turn the same page into a PDF for that.
The same numbers for different people
A CFO, a treasurer, a board member and a head of sales care about the same model for different reasons. With the numbers in one place, AI can retell them for each person, with the chart and the words that person uses.
YouUsing the model in this page, write a short version for the board. Two paragraphs and one chart, in plain words, with the lowest cash, the worst case we tested and what we decided.
The head of sales can ask straight away what 70 per cent locked means for the sales numbers, without learning how locking works.
Head of sales
The page says 70 per cent of next year's euros are locked. What does that mean for sales?
Your euro prices to customers do not change. What changes is how many kroner each euro turns into. The locked 70 per cent turns into 11.50 whatever happens. At 10.50, the open 30 per cent brings in NOK 18 million less over the year.
And if the euro gets stronger?
Then it works the other way. At 12.50 the open part brings in NOK 18 million more, and the locked part stays at 11.50.
Reply to Claude
How to make one with Claude
Start from the spreadsheet you already have and the one question the meeting has to answer. Ask for five pages, the question, the options, what moves the result, the forecast and the decision.
Give Claude a trimmed copy of the spreadsheet. Claude does not read the images inside it, and a large file takes up room Claude needs for the numbers. Check the file size, and keep only the sheets the meeting needs.
YouHere is our spreadsheet and the question for Thursday's meeting with the CFO. Make an HTML page with five pages we can click through in the meeting. Put the numbers in formulas on the page so we can move the euro, the loan and the locked share and see cash for the year update. On the last page, write the settings we choose into the page, so they show for anyone who opens it.
Check the numbers with Python and Excel
Every number on the page should come from a calculation, never from a sentence Claude wrote. Deterministic and non-deterministic AI explains why.
Ask Claude to build the model in Python first. Python is a programming language that runs the same calculation the same way every time. Claude writes the small program and runs it, and you never have to read the code.
The page does the same sums, and you can ask Claude to check that the two agree month by month.
If the finance team wants to see the logic, ask for the model as an Excel file as well. Each number on the page then has a cell with a formula behind it, so the treasurer can follow the loan, the locked euros and the cash line by line.
YouDo all the calculations in Python. Then give me an Excel file with the same model, every number as a formula, so we can check what the page shows. Last, check that the page and the Python model give the same cash for every month.
Before the meeting
Let Claude play the CFO first, so you find the questions the page cannot answer yet.
YouBefore the meeting, go through the page as a sceptical CFO. List the five questions the CFO is most likely to ask, and check that the page can answer each of them by moving something.
The file carries every number in it, so send it only to people who may see them all.
Your next meeting
Build the page for the next meeting where someone will ask what if. Next quarter you can put new numbers into the same page, and that kind of reuse is what building AI capital is about.
