Product Update: Smart Compare, Esper's New Document Comparison Tool
Smart Compare: See What Changed, Not Just Where
Every policymaker and rulemaker eventually hits the same wall: two versions of a document, and no fast way to know what actually changed between them. Redlines help, but only if the change happened in a straight line from one version to the next. The moment someone needs to compare a draft against a version from eighteen months ago, or check whether a rule reads differently than it did before a round of amendments, the redline stops being useful. Someone has to open both documents and read them side by side, line by line, then write up their own summary of what it means.
Smart Compare is built to close that gap.
Side-by-side diff view with the change list and AI summary in one place, ready to review inside a workflow.
The Comparison You Were Already Trying to Do, Now Done for You
Policy and rulemaking teams already know how to spot a changed sentence. What takes time is doing it across a hundred-page document, more than once, and then explaining the impact to a reviewer, a commissioner, or an agency partner who wasn't in the room. Smart Compare lets a user pick any two versions of a document, not just sequential ones, and get a side-by-side view with every addition, deletion, and edit highlighted at the line level. The two versions scroll together, so nothing gets lost in translation between one screen and the other.
A sidebar lists every change in order. Click one, and both documents jump to that spot in context. For a 100-plus-page rule package, that's the difference between an afternoon of manual review and a few minutes of targeted reading.
Reading the Redline Is One Thing. Understanding It Is Another.
A highlighted line tells a reviewer that something changed. It doesn't tell them what that change means for the people the rule applies to. That's where Smart Compare's AI-generated summary comes in: it groups changes by theme and explains, in plain language, how the meaning of the document has shifted between versions, not just where the edits landed.
From there, a user can ask follow-up questions right inside the diff view. "Did the filing deadline move?" "What changed in the penalty structure?" The in-feature Smart Search carries the context of the comparison already on screen, and it can also draw on the wider policy library, so a reviewer can ask how a provision has evolved across several versions, not just the two currently open.
This layer requires Smart Search to be active on the account. Without it, Smart Compare still surfaces the full side-by-side diff and the navigable change list, just without the AI summary and Q&A on top.
Built Into the Workflow, Not Bolted On
Smart Compare isn't a separate tool a user has to remember to open. It lives where document versions already live: the Policy Library, draft snapshots, and review package workflows in Rulemaking V2. When a reviewer receives a package to approve an amendment, the comparison against the current library version is right there, not in a different tab or a different login.
Every Comparison Stays Reviewable
Every AI summary and every Smart Search question run through the feature is logged, including the documents, the versions, and the timestamp, and users can flag a response with a thumbs up or down. That matters for a platform built around policy and rulemaking: the summary is there to support a reviewer's judgment, not to replace it or stand in as a compliance sign-off on its own. Comparisons can also be exported as a side-by-side PDF with changes highlighted, so the record travels with the decision.
What's Next
Smart Compare is rolling out in two phases. Policymakers get it first, in the Policy Library and drafting workflows. Rulemaking workflows, including review packages and item revisions, follow in the next phase. The feature requires Rulemaking V2; customers still on V1 will see it as one more reason to make the move.
Want to see Smart Compare on your own documents? Reach out to your Esper account team or request a walkthrough.
