The best AI summarizer will help you process large amounts of information quickly by turning long-form content into key points and ideas. These tools can help with speed reading, digesting large amount of information before a deadline, or create short teasers of content to see whether you should read the full version.
You might have noticed the overwhelming range of new AI summarizing tools hit the market over the last year. I’ve tested and compared the industry-leading summary generators based on their unique features, interfaces, pricing, and accuracy to help you find the best one for your needs and budget.
The Best AI Content Summarizers Tested by Our Experts
HubSpot — Best free AI summarizing tool for content marketing
Scalenut — Best AI summarizer for SEO content writing
Quillbot — Best free-forever AI paper summarizer tool for students
Anyword AI — Best for multi-purpose AI content summarization in different formats
The Top 9 AI Summary Tools Ranked
- Jasper AI — Best AI for summarizing articles
- HubSpot — Best free AI summarizer for content marketing
- Scalenut — Best AI summarizer for SEO content generation
- Quillbot — Best free AI research paper summarizer for students
- Anyword AI — Best AI that summarizes content in different formats
- PictoryAI — Best AI YouTube video summarizer
- Paraphraser.io — Best AI article summarizer and rewriter
- Writesonic — Best AI PDF summarizer tool
- Simplified — Best AI summary generator for social media content
- Show Full Guide
The Best AI Summary Generators Reviewed
I’ll explore each of the top AI summarizer tools in greater detail to help you choose one that best suits your needs and budget.
1. Jasper AI — Best AI for Summarizing Articles
Starting Price | $39/month |
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Free Version | Trial |
Top Features | Multi-lingual, Intelligent chatbot interface, Specify any part of text to summarize |
Pros
- Highly accurate summary outputs
- Uses a chatbot to interpret writing commands
- Native Grammarly integration
- Huge range of AI text-generation tools
Cons
- Plagiarism tool costs extra
- No free forever plan
2. HubSpot — Best Free AI Summarizer for Content Marketing
Starting Price | $15/seat/month |
---|---|
Free Version | Free plan |
Top Features | Content repurposing, Reporting automation, HubSpot suite integration |
Pros
- Summarizer available on free plan
- Advanced AI for contextual understanding
- Slick, easy-to-use interface
- Seamless integration with HubSpot marketing, sales, and CRM tools
Cons
- Currently only available in English
- Large jump in plan prices for two most expensive plans
3. Scalenut — Best AI Summarizer for SEO Content Generation
Starting Price | $19/month |
---|---|
Free Version | Trial |
Top Features | Generates multiple variations, Highly integrated with SEO tools, Variable output lengths |
Pros
- Summary tool outputs multiple drafts
- Integrates with a whole SEO tool suite
- Dedicated summary generation tool for granular control
- Keyword planner assists in building content from summaries
Cons
- Summary tool is a standalone template
- Character limit on summarizing tool
4. Quillbot — Best Free AI Research Paper Summarizer for Students
Starting Price | $8.33/month |
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Free Version | Free Plan |
Top Features | User-friendly summarizer, Real-time summary length change, Quillbot toolchain integration |
Pros
- Summarizer tool offers multiple output styles
- Statistics readout
- Changes to your summary take place in real time
- Lots of additional writing tools
Cons
- Could have more output types
- Less advanced with long-form content writing
5. Anyword AI — Best AI That Summarizes Content in Different Formats
Starting Price | $39/month |
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Free Version | Trial |
Top Features | Multi-language support, Multiple summary options, Unique generated text |
Pros
- Support for several different languages
- Multiple types of summarization are available
- Seven-day free trial to test out summarization tool
Cons
- Strict content filters
- Expensive plans and no free forever option
6. PictoryAI — Best AI YouTube Video Summarizer
Starting Price | $19/month |
---|---|
Free Version | Trial |
Top Features | Video transcription and summarization, Automatic caption generator, Subtitle generator |
Pros
- ‘Scene detection’ ensures video summarization is accurate
- Beginner-friendly user interface
- Cloud-based AI tool that works on Mac and Windows
Cons
- High starting price
- Struggles with more complex scripts
7. Paraphraser.io — Best AI Article Summarizer and Rewriter
Starting Price | $9/week |
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Free Version | Limited free version |
Top Features | Simple text summarizer, Article rewriter, AI essay writer |
Pros
- Text summarizer is free and simple to use
- Plagiarism detection
- Offers 24/7 chat support
Cons
- No citation generator like Quillbot
- Interface is very basic and not user-friendly
8. Writesonic — Best AI PDF Summarizer
Starting Price | $12/month |
---|---|
Free Version | Free plan |
Top Features | PDF summarizer, Multi-lingual text summarizer, Ad copy and product descriptions |
Pros
- Easy-to-use, interactive AI PDF summarizer
- Tons of SEO-informed features
- AI model uses live Google research
- Chatbot rivals ChatGPT and Claude
Cons
- Sharp increase in pricing between standard and advanced template plans
- Overly complex for a text summarizer
Starting Price | $10/month |
---|---|
Free Version | Free plan |
Top Features | Creative text summarizer, Blog ideas and outline, Caption generator |
Pros
- Free forever plan available
- Works across design, writing, and social media
- Suitable for business and personal use
Cons
- Requires sign-up even for free tools
- Generated content can be repetitive
The Best AI Summarizers Compared
I’ve created a concise summary of the key features, price points, and other relevant information concerning the top AI summary generator tools, including a plagiarism checker and translation capabilities.
AI Summarizer | Jasper AI | HubSpot | Scalenut | Quillbot | Anyword AI | PictoryAI | Paraphraser.io | Writesonic | Simplified |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Best for | Premium, feature-rich tool | Content marketing | SEO content | AI paper summarizing for students | Multi-purpose summarizing | Video Summarizing | Paraphrasing articles & essays | PDF summarization | Social media content |
Starting Price | $39/month | $15/month | $19/month | $8.33/month | $15/month | $19/month | $9/week | $12/month | $10/month |
Free Version | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Plagiarism Checker | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Translation | 30+ languages | ❌ | 25 languages | 45 languages | ❌ | 29+ languages | 20+ languages | 25+ languages | 25 languages |
How Does an AI Summary Generator Work?
An artificial intelligence (AI) summarizer analyzes text using NLP techniques to highlight the most important points. Once you’ve copied over your chosen text into the editor, the AI tools use an algorithm to evaluate the sentences and prioritize them based on factors such as word frequency and semantic relevance.
The sentences are ranked according to importance and arranged in a logical flow. You can customize the length and style of the summary according to how you prefer to read information, whether that’s in a paragraph or bullet points.
The Latest Updates From the World of AI Content Summarization Tools
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August, 2024: Copilot in Microsoft Word allows registered users to summarise chats over a specific period of time. This means you no longer have to manually scroll through extensive chat history to find the information you need. You can use a time-based phrases (like ‘yesterday’, or ‘six months’) to prompt the depth of the summary you want.
- August 26th, 2024: As part of Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro updates, subscribers can now can now upload Google Sheets, Google Docs, CSVs, and PDFs, as well as Excel and Word files from Google Drive on their own devices. By doing this, users will have assistance with research and writing tasks and be able to generate presentation-ready charts from lengthy documents.
- July 23rd, 2024: Meta has released LLaMA 3.1, an open-source model optimized for tasks such as text summarization. The aim is to provide a strong alternative to proprietary AI models.
- June 21st, 2024: Claude 3.5 Sonnet is released. Anthropic’s latest model raises the bar with its state-of-the-art processing and intelligence. It’s available for free on Claude.ai and can be used for even more sophisticated summarization tasks.
Are AI Summaries Plagiarism Free?
While AI summarizing tools do produce unique text, you’ll need to learn how to recognize plagiarism. Since the tool extracts sentences directly from your source text, the ideas, structure, and tone may follow that of the original author.
This won’t be a problem if you’re only using the tool as a research assistant, or as a way to speed through your reading list. The issues arise if you were to publish the summary as your own work.
If you want to publish the summary as part of your own project, you should definitely paraphrase the output before doing so to avoid plagiarism.
Is it ethical to use AI content summarizers?
Techopedia believes that AI content summarizers can generate accurate and legitimate summaries, but human fact-checking and editing are still crucial.
AI content summarizers are ethical when used for personal use but not when used for repurposing other writers’ work and claiming it as your own, which is essentially plagiarism.
While it can be a valuable tool for research, it’s not advisable to directly publish AI content summaries online in order to preserve the quality and integrity of your writing.
What About AI Podcast Summarizers?
Our testing framework for the best AI summarizer tools focuses mostly on text and video summarization. We do cover tools with AI audio summarizer features, but we’re starting to investigate the best AI tools for podcast summarizing specifically. The best AI podcast summarizers are designed for the exact niche purpose of rounding-up podcast content, with features such as:
- Automated Summarization: concise summary generation based on natural language processing (NLP) that extracts the salient information
- Highlight Extraction: the tool recognises the highlights and key points and includes these in the summary
- Chapter Marking: chapter sections are flagged for easy navigation through the podcast episode
- Customizable Summary Length: users can control the length of the output, from super-short flash summaries to more in-depth roundups with more colour and information.
- Integrations: it integrates well with social platforms or notetaking apps for seamless activity across all of them
- Social Sharing: linked to the above, it allows users to easily share their AI generated podcast summaries and their own thoughts on various social platforms.
Some of the most popular AI podcast summarizers on the market today are Snipd, Podz, Summari, Abridged, and Castro.
The Benefits of Using an AI Summary Generator
The three main benefits of using AI content summarizer tools are:
Using an AI summary tool can help busy individuals quickly go through extensive reading material, providing invaluable assistance to those working under tight deadlines.
If you want to grasp the main ideas in a text but don’t have the time, need, or interest to read the whole piece, using an AI summarizing tool can provide a shortcut to understanding the main points.
If you’re struggling with a complex subject, an AI summary generator can provide a simplified version of the topic, making it easier for you to understand.
It’s important to weigh up all the benefits and risks of using AI summarizers before you begin using them regularly. Here’s my list of the main pros and cons I could identify.
Benefits of Using AI Summarizers
- Time-saving: You can quickly condense lengthy texts into concise summaries, and gain back hours of time.
- Increased efficiency: With the time you’ve won back from avoiding reading chunky texts, you can focus on more brain-intensive tasks
- Consistency: AI tools will generate summaries with consistent formatting, meaning your notes will be meticulously organized and free from human errors.
- Translation: You can quickly and easily translate texts into other languages, meaning you can understand foreign texts in your native language.
- Customizable outputs: Generate summaries in the way you prefer to understand information, whether it be paragraphs or bullet points, the choice is yours.
Risks of Using AI Summarizers
- Loss of Nuance: AI may miss subtle details or the context that a human might find important. With certain disciplines, especially in creative fields, this may lead to huge oversights.
- Inaccuracy: Similarly, summaries can sometimes misinterpret the source material, especially in foreign language texts, leading to misleading or inaccurate conclusions.
- Over-reliance: Depending too much on AI summaries could reduce your own critical thinking and comprehension skills.
How to Choose the Best AI Summarizing Tool
With so many tools to choose from, it can be difficult to know which AI summary generator is the best fit for your project. Here are some key considerations to make while choosing:
Does the provider only produce summaries or does it also offer other text generation, SEO, editing, image, and audio features to make it more worthwhile?
Are the summaries accurate enough the first time, or did the text have to undergo manual editing as well? Spending too much extra time editing can make the tool a redundant time-saving measure.
Does the tool offer multiple summary formats, such as paragraphs and bullet points, to suit your preferences?
How simple or complicated is the tool to get to grips with? Again, this tool should make your life easier, not more difficult.
The seamless integration of the AI summarizer tool with file sharing, productivity and social media tools and apps will make it much easier to share, store, and organize content summaries
How expensive is the tool? Even better, if it offers a free forever plan to help you summarize your text without costing you anything.
How to Use AI to Summarize Text — A Quick Guide
Here's a step-by-step guide on how to use QuillBot to summarize text.
Navigate to QuillBot's Summarizer
From QuillBot’s homepage, you’ll easily find its range of tools, including the summarizer, a grammar checker, AI detector, and a plagiarism checker.
Enter Text
On the left-hand side of the editor, you can paste the text you want to summarize. You can also select keywords to guide QuillBot on the parts of the text that are most relevant to your project. It’ll base the summary around this.
Summarize
Then hit the ‘Summarize’ button and your results will appear in the right-hand side of the editor. You’ll also get the chance to paraphrase the summary if you want to change the wording.
Shorten the Summary
If you want to streamline the text, you can use the slider at the top of the editor to adjust the length of the summary. You’ll have to regenerate the results to see the new summary.
Change Format
If you prefer to read information in a bulleted format, you can also reformat the summary into this style. Use the settings at the top of the screen to adjust the model of the summary. You can also create a custom format according to your preferences.
FAQs
Can AI summarize a PDF?
What are the limitations of an AI summarizing tool?
Are AI summarizers reliable?
What file formats do AI summary generators support?
Can I use an AI Summarizer to Shorten my College Essay?
References
- Building Scalable, Explainable, and Adaptive NLP Models with Retrieval (SAIL Blog)
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) (United States Department of State)
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Plagiarism (SJSU Research Guides at San José State University Library)