As knowledge workers, we spend days and weeks reading and digesting information that helps us get better at our jobs. Between the ever-growing stack of industry reports, customer research, and the usual work emails and process documents, something new always demands our cognitive attention.
The worst part? The to-be-read list never seems to reduce. Despite dedicating so much time to it daily, I still feel like I need to catch up.
That’s why I’ve been excited about AI summarizers. These useful tools can tackle 50-page work PDFs or summarize key points from lengthy research reports in minutes. And if you’re like me, you’ve probably already tried some of them, too!
In this blog post, I’ll talk about some top AI summary generators that my team and I recently tested. These will help you and me catch up on our reading faster than before and finally close those two hundred thirty-seven open tabs.
Here we go!
We Tested the 10 Best AI Document Summarizers in 2024
- What Should You Look for in AI Document Summarizers?
- The 10 Best AI Document Summarizers to Use in 2024
- 1. ClickUp: Best for AI document management
- 2. Get Digest: Best for generating summaries of varying lengths
- 3. Scribbr: Best free text summarizer for academic research
- 4. Summary Generator: Best for students and non-tech-savvy people
- 5. Notta: Best for summarizing meeting transcripts
- 6. Paraphraser.io: Best free long-form text summarizer
- 7. Jasper: Best for enterprise teams
- 8. Writesonic: Best AI text summarizer to generate marketing hooks
- 9. Gimme Summary AI: Best free web article summarizer for Chrome browsers
- 10. Copy.ai: Best for summarizing documents in bulk
- Generate Summaries and Grasp Key Points Immediately with ClickUp
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhat Should You Look for in AI Document Summarizers?
When compiling this list, I tested over a dozen AI summarizing tools. Many of them employed OpenAI’s GPT engine to provide concise summaries. However, I also found a few built on proprietary Large Language Models (LLMs). While the latter came with more customization options, they also had heavier price tags attached.
Here’s what I looked for when testing these apps:
- Language model: Did the tool use a custom large language model (LLM) or leverage existing models like GPT? And if it’s the latter, which version of the GPT engine should we subscribe to?
- Customizations: Can I modify the length or format of the summary? Maybe give special instructions or ask for specific information?
- Quality of the summary generated: I assessed how well each tool captured the essence of the original document. Did they maintain the original phrasing and capture key sentences, or did they simplify the language for better readability?
- Cost: Beyond pricing, I dug deeper into the ‘cost-to-value’ proposition of paid tools. Did the additional fees unlock useful features, or were they bells and whistles?
- Ease of use: How intuitive and user-friendly were the interfaces? This included file upload options, chrome extensions, and UI navigation
For AI summarizers that support multiple languages, I also put some of those capabilities to the test—focusing on their accuracy in French and Spanish (apart from English).
Let’s continue our review and see how each AI summarizing tool fared!
Summarize this article for me pleaseThe 10 Best AI Document Summarizers to Use in 2024
In this section, we’ll explore individual summarizers, showcasing their strengths and weaknesses so you can make an informed choice.
1. ClickUp: Best for AI document management
ClickUp is an all-in-one work management platform that helps you with document collaboration, project management, and internal communications from a single app.
And the best part? All of these tools are tightly integrated with ClickUp Brain. This AI writer-cum-assistant can help you do everything from finding information and writing content to summarizing project updates and translating documents.
Summarize meetings
All you have to do is add your documents to ClickUp Docs (the built-in document collaboration software) and ask AI to summarize text. You can also give prompts about the summary’s tone, readability level, and audience to make it more contextual.
Create task lists from extracted information
Another way to use ClickUp Brain is to ask it to find some information and then create a document or task list out of it. For example, I could ask ClickUp to tell me about the onboarding process at my company and then make an onboarding task list within ClickUp for a new hire to refer to.
Summarize project threads
ClickUp Projects also provides a ‘summarize’ button for all ClickUp Tasks and comment threads. All I’ve to do is click this button to summarize all project updates. It helps me stay up to date without digging into 50-odd messages manually.
Summarize status updates
In addition, you can use the Ask AI feature in ClickUp to receive work updates and track your team’s weekly (or daily) progress.
This is a convenient feature, especially for managers.
All you have to do is add the teammates whose work updates you need, choose the interval —weekly, daily, or custom—and decide the format in which you want it presented. You can get all their updates or ask ClickUp Brain to give you a summary or bulleted list. The last one can be beneficial if you have a lot of work updates to go through.
Automate summary generation
Want to track multiple projects at the same time? You can use ClickUp’s Custom Fields option to add AI summaries and AI project updates as two columns in your tasks—and get automatic summaries without opening your assignments or projects each time.
Translate (and summarize) content
Communicating with a global team or non-English-speaking customers can be tricky at times. I overcame this by adding my documents in English and asking ClickUp Brain to summarize them in a different language, which I can share with my non-English-speaking customers.
ClickUp best features
- Summarize everything: From project threads to meeting notes and chat messages, generate a summary of all content right within ClickUp
- Add a summary box: Give teammates a gist of each document or page in ClickUp by inserting an auto-generated summary block
- Pull out action items: Let ClickUp Brain review your documents, chats, and meeting transcripts and make a list of action items or next steps for you
- Translate text: Generate quick summaries of documents in different languages and keep global teams on the same page
- Get summaries on mobile: If you’re using the ClickUp on your smartphone, then you can enable automatic summaries of your comment threads and inbox messages
ClickUp limitations
- You can’t summarize a PDF file directly (except by copying and pasting all content)
ClickUp pricing
- Free Forever
- Unlimited: $7/user per month
- Business: $12/user per month
- Enterprise: Contact for pricing
- ClickUp Brain is available on all paid plans for $5 per Workspace member per month
Clicking ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.7/5 (9500+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.6/5 (4000+ reviews)
2. Get Digest: Best for generating summaries of varying lengths
The next tool I tested was Get Digest, a straightforward AI summarizer with a user-friendly interface and powerful document summarization.
What stands out about this tool is that you can pick among various summary modes and determine the summary length. The ‘% of Source’ section has six options to pick from—5, 15, 25, 35, 45, and 55. The greater the number you pick, the lengthier the summary.
I’d recommend this summarizing tool if you know how much information you need from a piece of writing. For example, if you just want the most important information from an article, you can pick ‘5%’. If you want the gist of the whole article, almost half the length of the article, go for ‘55’ instead.
But its capability to summarize articles is limited—it gives you a bunch of keywords and a gist of the key points. You can’t get the document summary in a single paragraph or ask for specific highlights.
Get Digest best features
- Generate summaries by pasting text directly, entering a URL, or uploading PDF documents
- Download summaries as text files
- Get summaries for text in over 33 languages
- Determine the number of keywords you can extract from the text
Get Digest limitations
- It has an upper limit of 7000 words
- The summaries generated from URLs were less reliable and comprehensive than when we directly pasted text from the source or uploaded a document
Get Digest pricing
- Free
- Business: Starts at $133 per license per month
Get Digest ratings and reviews
- G2: Reviews unavailable
- Capterra: Reviews unavailable
3. Scribbr: Best free text summarizer for academic research
Scribbr provides AI writing tools for scholars and researchers, with features such as academic writing and editing, APA-style editing, citations, and, of course, summarizations.
The best part is that you don’t have to sign up to use this summarizer tool. You can even check if the summary generated is plagiarism-free. And this, too, is done free of cost. So, if you’re a student looking for economical summarizing tools, this is a good option.
Scribbr best features
- Generate text or bullet-point summaries of your text
- Customize the focus of your summary by choosing keywords
- Download a TXT file of your summaries
- Use the Re-summarize option to change the length of the summary generated
Scribbr limitations
- As it has a limit of 600 words, summarizing a long article can be difficult
Scribbr pricing
- Free
Scribbr ratings and reviews
- G2: Reviews unavailable
- Capterra: Reviews unavailable
4. Summary Generator: Best for students and non-tech-savvy people
I have featured Summary Generator—a basic document summarizer with minimal UI (just three buttons)—for students or non-tech-savvy people who might be intimidated by the more advanced tools on this list.
Here’s how it works—you add a block of text, and it gives you a simpler, easily digestible version of it, with lists included. You can hit the ‘Copy’ button and paste this text on a word processor or notepad.
Since the tool has minimal features, you can’t download the summary as a text file or ask for specific highlights.
Summary Generator best features
- Generate concise and easily readable summaries in seconds
Summary Generator limitations
- You can’t generate custom summaries
- The ads can make the experience feel slightly cluttered
Summary Generator pricing
- Free
Summary Generator ratings and reviews
- G2: Reviews unavailable
- Capterra: Reviews unavailable
5. Notta: Best for summarizing meeting transcripts
As Notta is primarily a note-taking app, it’s quite good at analyzing the nuances in dialogue. This makes it the perfect tool to summarize webinar and podcast transcripts.
I liked how Notta creates chapters for each transcript summary—it feels like you’re reading a blog post or a book, not just a bunch of bullet points.
You can also use Notta in your meeting recap documents to extract actionable insights.
Notta best features
- Generate chapter-wise summaries of all your transcripts and create process documents
- Use customizable templates for different types of meetings
- Share the summarized text using a link
Notta limitations
- The summary generator is available only in the paid plan
- You can’t summarize PDFs or web articles directly
Notta pricing
- Free
- Pro: $14.99/user per month
- Business: $27.99/user per month
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
Notta ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.6/5 (100+ reviews)
- Capterra: Unavailable
6. Paraphraser.io: Best free long-form text summarizer
Want to summarize large documents? Paraphraser.io is a great option. I tried summarizing a 15,000-word scientific paper, and the results were great.
It also shows details such as the number of words, characters, sentences, and paragraphs of the original text. This helps compare the summary with the original. However, you can’t create custom summaries based on things like tone or keywords.
While Paraphraser.io also allows you to generate summaries as bullet points, I found them disjointed and missing the original context in some instances. I also tested its French summarization capabilities, and the results were on point.
Paraphraser.io best features
- Generate summaries in nine languages, including French, Turkish, and Portuguese
- Paraphrase the summary generated for further simplification
- Check for plagiarism and grammatical errors as part of the free plan
- Summarize lengthy articles and academic documents easily
Paraphraser.io limitations
- No summary prompts
- Some features in the UI—like the summary length slider—can be confusing
Paraphraser.io pricing
- Free
- Basic: Starts at $7/user per month
- Enterprise: Starts at $35/user per month
Paraphraser.io ratings and reviews
- G2: Reviews unavailable
- Capterra: Reviews unavailable
7. Jasper: Best for enterprise teams
Jasper is well-known for being an AI content generator built for enterprise teams. But one of its features also includes the AI text summarizer.
I uploaded my text to Jasper and generated summaries using one of three default summary prompts and my own prompt. While the default prompts work well, you’ll get better results by adding more context to your custom prompts.
One feature I’m impressed with is the ‘Audience’ option, which generates the summary for different audience types. For example, I got a pretty easy-to-understand summary of an NFT-related article.
Jasper offers a 7-day free trial (a credit card is required) so you can explore its features before purchasing.
Jasper best features
- Generate summaries in more than 25 languages
- Use the Jasper Chrome extension to summarize emails and Google Docs easily
- Use the AI Copilot to create summaries in your brand’s voice and tone
Jasper limitations
- No free plan
- Doesn’t summarize PDFs
Jasper pricing
- Creator: $49/seat per month
- Pro: $69/seat per month
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
Jasper ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.7/5 (1200+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.8/5 (1800+ reviews)
8. Writesonic: Best AI text summarizer to generate marketing hooks
While Writesonic uses OpenAI’s LLM for summarization, it has been trained specifically on marketing content. This makes it a great summary generator for marketers. For example, you can ask it to generate a hook for social media posts based on a long-form article. And you can regenerate the summary for variation.
A particularly good feature is the Article Writer 6. All I had to do was give a topic (interactive demos) and choose some references. Writesonic created a draft with inputs from all those references in just a few minutes. It also cites references, so you can go back to those articles for deeper research.
Quite the timesaver for writers in the research and outline phase!
Writesonic best features
- Summarize multiple blog posts and rewrite them as one long-form article
- Create channel-specific summaries of your articles with just a click and distribute them easily
- Generate summaries in 25+ languages, including French, Spanish, and Japanese
Writesonic limitations
- The quality of the summary depends on the number of credits. So, generating premium-quality summaries can be costly
Writesonic pricing
- Standard: $99 per month (includes 1 team member)
- Professional: $199 per month (includes 3 team members)
- Advanced: $399 per month (includes 5 team members)
Writesonic ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.7/5 (1900+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.8/5 (1900+ reviews)
9. Gimme Summary AI: Best free web article summarizer for Chrome browsers
How often have you bookmarked an article to read later because you were on a time crunch? With Gimme Summary AI’s Chrome or Brave browser extensions, I can get an overview of the main talking points of any web article within a few seconds.
The best part? I don’t have to copy and paste articles into different tabs to get the summary.
However, as Gimme Summary AI is built over ChatGPT, I’m asked to go to the ChatGPT window for authentication when I ask to generate a summary, which can be inconvenient.
Gimme Summary AI best features
- Generate one-click summaries of web articles right from their web page
- Get free AI summaries without ads or having to give away your details
Gimme Summary AI limitations
- Supports only English
- As it’s an open-source project, it can be buggy at times
Gimme Summary AI pricing
- Free
Gimme Summary AI ratings and reviews
- G2: Reviews unavailable
- Capterra: Reviews unavailable
10. Copy.ai: Best for summarizing documents in bulk
Sometimes, even summarizing content can become a huge time-killer—especially if you’re a marketer who has to summarize blogs into bullet points for social media or a research student who has to read a hundred different research articles for a paper you’re writing.
If so, Copy.ai is the perfect choice. Its document workflow automation features empower you to streamline the summarization process.
I used it to draft a thought leadership blog post. I simply created a summary prompt outlining my specific requirements. Copy.ai then condensed my SME interviews, compiling the key points from each conversation into a single, concise summary.
Copy.ai best features
- Use Copy.ai’s summary templates to write your ‘summary prompts’ and save time
- Create automated workflows to generate multiple document summaries or even summaries of different versions of a document with a single prompt
- Generate SEO-optimized meta titles and descriptions for your blog posts with just a click
Copy.ai limitations
- Automated workflows are only available in the paid plans
- Copy.ai doesn’t summarize web articles from URLs
Copy.ai pricing
- Free
- Starter: $49/user per month
- Advanced: $249 for 5 users per month
Copy.ai ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.7/5 (150+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.5/5 (60 reviews)
Summarize this article for me pleaseGenerate Summaries and Grasp Key Points Immediately with ClickUp
If you’re looking for an AI summary generator for work—to summarize documents, chat threads, meeting transcripts, and such—then my top suggestion is ClickUp. Need the key points of a meeting in bullet points for a quick scan? Or maybe you want to highlight messages from an individual in a chat thread? It’s all possible with ClickUp Brain.
I agree that generating summaries can save you a great deal of time. But why stop there? Why not invest in a platform that does so much more to simplify your work and save you time?
That’s why I recommend ClickUp. In addition to summarizing text, it can also help you manage projects, collaborate with your team, and organize your tasks.
Sign up for ClickUp today and get hands-on experience with ClickUp’s AI summarizing capabilities.
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