I Need to Summarise Content
You need to get the key points from a document, article, or video without reading or watching the whole thing. This is one of the areas where AI tools have genuinely improved the situation — but the quality varies a lot depending on what you're summarising and which tool you use.
Claude — for long PDFs and documents
For summarising PDFs, reports, and long documents, Claude handles it better than most alternatives. Upload a PDF and ask "what are the main points?" or "summarise this in three paragraphs" and the output is consistently accurate and well-structured. Claude's large context window means it can handle lengthy documents without losing the thread. You can also ask follow-up questions: "what does it say about the budget section?" or "are there any caveats to the main recommendations?"
The free tier handles a solid amount of summarisation before you hit limits. For regular heavy use, the paid plan makes sense. More detail in our pick: Claude for Everyday Writing.
Perplexity — for web articles and research
Perplexity's particular strength is URL-based summarisation. Paste a link to an article, a research page, or a long web document, and Perplexity reads and summarises it with citations. This is faster than copying and pasting content into another tool. The free tier is generous enough for daily use. It also handles follow-up questions well — "what sources does this rely on?" or "is there a dissenting view mentioned?"
For a full assessment of Perplexity and how it compares to Google, see: Perplexity vs Google. For a broader comparison of summarisation tools, see: Best Tools for Summarising Content.
Readwise Reader — for building a reading practice
If you're not just summarising one-off documents but managing a regular reading load — newsletters, articles, research — Readwise Reader adds a layer that pure summarisation tools don't. You save content to your reading queue, highlight as you go, and Readwise surfaces those highlights back to you over time using spaced repetition. The summary benefit comes from the highlighting workflow: you're not just getting the key points, you're extracting what matters to you specifically. More work than pure summarisation, but the retention is significantly better.
It costs money and is worth it if reading is a regular part of your workflow. See the full assessment: Readwise Reader Review.
YouTube transcripts — often overlooked, often free
Many YouTube videos have auto-generated transcripts that are searchable and skimmable. Click the three-dot menu below any YouTube video, select "Show transcript," and you have a searchable text version of the entire video. You can read it in a fraction of the time it would take to watch. For anything where the audio track is primarily speech — tutorials, talks, lectures — this is often the fastest summarisation method and it's completely free. The transcript quality varies but is usually good enough for the gist.