Let’s be honest, whether you’re a busy student or a full-time worker, finding time to read full bodies of text back-to-back isn’t always easy, especially if you have to go through multiple documents in one sitting.
Thankfully, by leveraging the power of generative artificial intelligence, AI summarizer tools can be used to condense documents, articles, research papers, and more into useful summaries – trimming down the fat for you so you have more time to focus on the content that matters.
With so many AI summarizers available, we rounded up some of our top picks and pointed out which are best for different use cases. We also cover their prices and whether they offer a free version, to help connect you to an AI platform in your budget. Read on to find out how the best AI summarizers compare against the competition, and to learn why the tools are emerging as one of the best time-saving hacks of 2024.
Why Use an AI Summarizer Tool?
According to Gartner, professionals spend around 50% of their time searching for information – time that could be better spent in a variety of ways including engaging in deep work, collaborating with colleagues, or taking a well-earned stroll around the block.
Thanks to rapid developments in generative AI, the time you spend riffling through surplus information can be axed significantly, and you don’t even need to spend a fortune for the privilege.
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AI summarizer tools can be used to create concise rundowns of large bodies of text in seconds, making it easier for users to get the main highlights of news articles, business documents, research papers, and more, without spending half an afternoon doing so.
Lots of AI summarizer tools offer extra translation, proofreading, and paraphrasing capabilities too, allowing you to condense, refine, and reformat content in one fell swoop. If you don’t want to pay a premium for the service, there are several free options available too, although these products tend to lack advanced content features and have more stringent text limits.
The Best AI Summarizer Tools in 2024
AI summarzers have the potential to revolutionize the way you work. Take a look at our favorite platforms, and what their best suited to, below.
- AI Summarizer – Best AI summarizer overall
- Summarizing tool – Best free AI summarizer tool
- ChatGPT – Best AI tool for summarizing PDF files
- Jasper – Best AI summarizer tool for content creators
- Scholarly Best AI summarizer for academics
1. AI Summarizer
- Best AI summarizer overall
- Price from $6.99 (Free version available)
AI Summarizer is a user-friendly summarizing tool that lets you summarize, paraphrase, and improve the quality of your text. The provider offers both paid and free versions, with its paid plan capping words at 5,000 words per submission and its freemium plan limiting words to 3,000.
AI Summarizer screenshot lets you condense and reformat lengthy content for free. Source: AI Summarizer
With most bodies of text falling under this limit, AI Summarizer will be a top option for users trying to keep costs to a minimum. The tool also provides output in three different styles – whole paragraphs, bullet points, and single sentences – and lets you choose how concise you want the summary to be. This gives AI Summarizer a leg up over other free platforms, like Summarizing Tool, which doesn’t give users as much control over the final result.
However, for all of AI Summarizer’s strengths, the free version is littered with ads which may get on your nerves if you’re using the tool a lot. You’re able to bypass this problem by upgrading to its enhanced Summarizer 2.0 platform quite easily though, as long as you’re willing to shell out a couple of dollars per month.
2. Summarizing Tool
- Best free AI summarizer tool
- Price from: Free
Summarizing Tool is a free forever text summarizer that allows users to condense text with or without AI. For a free service, the tool offers a surprising amount of capabilities. For example, the platform lets you transform text from a wide variety of formats, including text, documents, and PDF files and also gives users the option to copy or download output, based on your specific needs.
Summarizing Tool lets you summarize text from a wide variety of formats for free. Source: Summarizer Tool
Aside from summarization capabilities, the free platform lets users check content for plagiarism and grammatical errors, and can also be used to paraphrase text. The tool doesn’t place limits on how many times you’re able to use the service either, making it a great fit for users who have to transform large quantities of text on a tight budget.
However, like AI Summarizer, Summarizer Tool does feature lots of ads on its service, and with no option to bump up to a paid tier, the platform definitely won’t be right for everyone.
3. ChatGPT
- Best AI tool for summarizing PDF files
- Price from: $20 per month (Free version available)
While we wouldn’t normally recommend using chatbots to summarize and refine large bodies of text, ChatGPT’s newly rolled-out PDF summarizing feature makes it one of the best solutions of its kind for condensing the file format. And the best thing about it? You can use the feature for absolutely free without upgrading to the Plus plan.
ChatGPT can now be used so summarize large documents. Source: communityopenai.com
Thanks to ChatGPT’s recent GPT-4o update, the popular chatbot now lets users attach documents, screenshots, and PDF documents to queries. This useful upgrade means that you’re able to use the tool to summarize and analyze PDF files and ask the chatbot questions about this document to gain targeted follow-up insights. You’re also able to request for the information to be displayed in a variety of different formats, including paragraphs and bullet points, making the service more useful than other free options like Summarizer Tool.
At the time being, free ChatGPT users are only able to make a limited amount of GPT-4o queries before their credits run out. But for those tasks with analyzing a high volume of PDFs, you also have the option to upgrade to ChatGPT Plus for $20 per month, as the paid plan doesn’t feature a cap on GPT-4o queries.
4. Jasper
- Best AI summarizer tool for content creators
- Price from: $39 per month
Jasper AI is a versatile AI tool that lets you summarize text to a high degree of accuracy, working in a similar way to AI chatbots like ChatGPT. Alongside its text-based capabilities, Jasper also lets you brainstorm ideas for your own content, browse through summary history in the chat window, and translate text into 29 languages.
Jasper AI lets you summarize text-based documents, as well as image and audio files. Source: Jasper AI
The chatbot-style platform makes trimming down content a whizz by giving users control over its output style and letting them choose how long they want the summary to be. However, what really gives Jasper its competitive edge is its ability to summarize audio content like podcasts, lectures, and interviews. This unique capability makes the tool ideas for content creators who are interested in turning existing audio files into multiple pieces of short-form content.
While Jasper does offer a 7-day free trial for new users to test out the platform, its paid plans, which start at $39 per month, will likely exceed the budgets of most casual users.
5. Scholarcy
- Best AI summarizer for academics
- Price from: $3.75 per month (Free version available)
Scholarly is an academic companion that uses AI to summarize text and generate flashcards for research or studying purposes. The tool uses extractive and abstractive summarization capabilities to provide users with useful output, and the platform can also identify key concepts in the text, to make it easier for users to understand important themes.
Scholarcy offers a useful browser extension that provides users with snapshots of articles across the web. Source: Scholarcy
In addition to its desktop version, Scholarcy’s useful browsing extension lets users condense content while they’re browsing, making the platform ideal for users looking to regularly summarize articles and online papers.
Schorlarcy does offer a free version, but it only lets you summarize three research papers daily. While this should be more than enough for casual researchers, if you will be relying on the tool consistently you’ll have to upgrade to one of its paid plans which start from $3.75 per month.
