If you’re like me, you don’t have time to sit down and leisurely read the entire article from start to finish, but you still want to be informed throughout the day. Instead of just scrolling through the daily headlines, there’s a free service that will sum up any article you throw at it, giving you a better idea of what’s going on without committing to reading the entire article.
The service is called Summari, and while it’s in beta, it’s completely free. Unlike other summary generators, Summari uses a unique AI dataset that mimics how people parse and break down full articles into abstract summaries. It then uses “thousands of human-written summaries”to continuously improve its machine learning algorithm.
What you end up with is a quick and accurate summary of any article from Summari, neatly formatted into a short introduction, key ideas, and supporting points. You can even see an estimate of the time you’re saving in the app or browser. And it works with most article links from Apple News, Google News, SmartNews, Twitter, The New York Times, WSJ, Economist, Medium, Wikipedia, etc.
Once the company completes the beta testing phase, the free tier will always be available for Summari, but the entire service may be paid. Since the service is still in the early stages of development, Summari doesn’t have a timeline yet to share. You can get an idea of your current pricing thoughts on the company’s pricing page, but these prices are subject to change.
Using Summari on your phone, tablet, or computer
There are several ways to take advantage of Summari, including a Chrome browser extension, a Twitter account, and mobile apps for Android, iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. Each method is easy to use and Summari can summarize almost any text link.
Apart from the Twitter method, you need to create a Summari account in order to use the apps and the browser extension; You can do it the old fashioned way with an email address and password, or you can sign in with your Apple or Google account.
Registration screen when using the Chrome extension.
App for Android, iOS, iPadOS or macOS.
First, install the Summari app from the App Store or Play Store. It will work on most Android devices, Chromebooks, iPhones, iPads and Macs with M1. Once installed, sign in or create an account if you haven’t already.
- Installation: Summari on iOS, iPadOS, or macOS (via the App Store)
- Install: Summari on Android or Chromebook (via Play Store)
If you want to make a summary, copy the link of the article you want to summarize from another application. Then open Summary. If it finds a link in your clipboard, there should be a “Generate”button – tap it. If not, click the Summarize Link button, paste the link, and click the arrow to generate a summary. This may take around 20 seconds, but it may be more or less depending on the length of the article.
Alternatively, you can run the resume generator from within the article itself. Open your device’s share menu from any app that has a snip, then select Summary from Sharing Extensions. If you don’t see it, select “More”and add Summari to your favorites for easier access. This method will also take about 20 seconds, give or take, to make a summary for you.
While it’s loading, you can click Save to Read Later. It will create a summary in the background so you can do other things until you’re ready to read it. If you missed the button while downloading, use the heart icon when a summary is available.
Chrome extension in desktop browser.
The Summari Chrome extension is available for all browsers that use the Chromium web browser project, such as Microsoft Edge, Brave Browser, Opera, and Google Chrome. Use the link below to install it, then sign in or create an account if you haven’t already. Unfortunately there are no browser extensions for Firefox, Safari or DuckDuckGo.
There are two ways to use the extension. First, when you’re browsing your favorite news website, a little pop-up will appear at the bottom of your browser that tells you how much time you can save by summarizing the article, and then it collapses into a Summari apostrophe icon. Hover your mouse over that apostrophe, click the button that says “Save [#] min”and wait for the summary.
Second, click the Summari apostrophe icon next to the address bar where the extensions are located. If you don’t see it, click on the puzzle icon to find it in the extensions menu (pin it if you want to use it faster next time). After clicking on the icon of the Summari extension, it will start generating a summary of the article.
As with attachments, the time it takes to generate a summary depends on the length and complexity of the article. You can read the bulletin when it appears, click the heart to save it to your Bulletin Inbox, or share the bulletin with others by clicking the Share Bulletin button.
Twitter bot
Summari has a great Twitter bot that can summarize articles for you by simply tagging Summari’s Twitter account. In my opinion, this is the easiest way to summarize the story and you don’t even need to create a Summari account. According to the CEO of Summari, the Twitter bot will always be available to anyone with a Twitter account.
To use the bot, reply to a Tweet with a link to an article and add the @getsummari Twitter tag with the “summarize”keyword. Summari will respond to your tweet as soon as it summarizes the content by providing a link to read the summary. Like any other link, you can share the summary with your friends on Twitter or another app.
- Follow the news: @getsummari on Twitter
Reading your resume
When you create a summary, it should appear immediately so that you can read it. If you save it for later, you’ll see it in the Inbox tab of the Summari app and can open it from there. When you’re done reading it, you can zip it so it’s available but not in your inbox, delete it, mark it as read, or share it.
What can be summarized?
Summari currently handles most of the articles on the web, including news articles, newsletters, blogs, online magazines, press releases, research reports, and more. However, if the service detects a paywall tampering, it will notify you that the summary may be adversely affected:
This page may require special access, which affects the quality of the summary. We are working on improving it.
Summari hopes to add more file types in the future, such as PDF and Google Docs, but this will most likely only happen after beta testing.