10 Best YouTube Video Summarizers in 2025

In today’s fast-paced world, AI’s biggest use case for a general user is not to solve complex problems, but to significantly reduce time. Don’t have the time to surf webpages to look for some information or generate codes that would have otherwise taken hours to type? AI has it for you within seconds. Another excellent use case that we find extremely fruitful is summarizing long-form content, such as PDFs, articles, or, most importantly, YouTube videos. Indeed, AI models have become advanced enough to summarize entire YouTube videos within seconds, saving you valuable time.

While YouTube has started showing a 3-4 line summary under videos, it’s best not to consider or use it for serious purposes. YouTube video summaries can be used to streamline your workflow, aid in studying, or cut down research time, all of which are popular reasons why people consume long-form video content on YouTube. This article outlines the 8 best YouTube Video Summarizers that you can use to generate detailed summaries of videos within seconds and save your valuable time. Let’s get going!

Quick Comparison Between Google Gemini, ChatGPT, and Perplexity

Due to their immense popularity, most users’ first choice for summarizing a YouTube video would be these AI chatbots. Not only are Gemini, ChatGPT, and Perplexity familiar to use, but they are also free and well-known for their overall accuracy. We tested these chatbots specifically for the purpose of summarizing YouTube videos, and here’s a quick comparison to reflect our findings:

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Google Gemini

YouTube and Gemini, both products of the same parent company, are generally well-integrated, which is why Gemini naturally performs excellently when it comes to summarizing YouTube videos. It’s usually flawless and gives detailed pointers about the YouTube video, which is adequate for most users. For added ease, Gemini also provides corresponding timestamps to refer to in the YouTube video.

It’s a typical Gemini response, after all, focusing on the most important aspects, such as subtopics and highlighted pointers in the video, but a little less elaborate than we would have liked. Furthermore, it occasionally gets the names of the things mentioned in the YouTube video wrong and is often slow to generate the summaries. Overall, Gemini is good enough for most people.

ChatGPT

Known as the king of the hill of AI chatbot agents, ChatGPT ought to be among the best AI has to offer, but is it? Well, for us, ChatGPT often failed even to access the video’s contents, which was truly surprising, as it wasn’t the case with either Gemini or Perplexity. However, we were impressed by ChatGPT’s capabilities at times when it managed to work, as it outperformed other AI models by a significant margin.

It not only provides a detailed summary but also links to sources other than the video, which is very helpful for researching or verifying the video’s claims or statements. It also provides a summary table and conclusion alongside the usual detailed pointers, and also links to articles covering the same topic. ChatGPT is quite fast at processing videos and generates the most detailed summaries among all, making it an ideal option.

Perplexity

Perplexity has quickly gained popularity in recent months and has undoubtedly become a mainstream AI agent. However, it sits as an awkward middle child in the context of YouTube video summarizers compared to Gemini and ChatGPT. While we didn’t face any major shortcomings when summarizing YouTube videos, the summaries generated by Perplexity didn’t feel perfect to us.

Neither were the summaries as detailed as those of ChatGPT; they lacked corresponding timestamps and supporting links to relevant articles, which were provided by Gemini and ChatGPT, respectively. However, the overall style and quality of the summaries should be satisfactory for most. Perplexity also has a dedicated section for listing sources, but it consistently links to articles that are irrelevant.

All in all, if you’re looking to get the job done using the aforementioned AI agents, we recommend opting for ChatGPT, as it generates the best YouTube video summaries, followed by Gemini, in case ChatGPT fails to work, which is more common than you think. We wouldn’t recommend Perplexity over others, but it could be used as a fallback option if you don’t have access to other AI models.

That said, there are browser extensions and websites that are far better tailored for the purpose. Below are some of our recommendations for the Best AI YouTube video summarizers:

Recall

Straight up, Recall is a YouTube video summarizer done right. For starters, it is integrated directly into YouTube’s web interface as a sidebar through its browser extension, making it easier to access. Moreover, Recall houses a host of thoughtful features. As for the summary of a YouTube video, you have two options: concise and detailed. While the former is a brief description of the video’s content, the latter is far more elaborate, mentioning almost everything about the video with corresponding timestamps.

Thanks to its chatbot, you can ask follow-up questions to understand the video better, and it’s really good at answering such queries. However, we felt that the summaries sometimes missed a few details, probably because Recall’s AI didn’t consider them relevant enough. One of Recall’s brilliant features is its connections column, which provides an organized view of related items to the summarized YouTube video, including relevant people, companies, topics, and more, making it easier to explore related information.

Other than that, Recall can not just summarize YouTube videos, but also PDFs, online recipes, articles, and even podcasts. In addition to its browser extension, Recall is also available as a mobile app and website. The app operates on a copy-paste mechanism, where you need to paste the link of the YouTube video to summarize it. Fortunately, everything syncs between them so that you can access your summaries from any suitable platform. Albeit not a free summarizer, you receive ten credit points to try out Recall before purchasing its Plus plan, which starts at $7 per month in its yearly plan.

Pros:

1. Well-integrated within YouTube, and offers both a detailed and concise summary
2. In-built chatbot answers follow-up questions well
3. Also summarizes PDFs, recipes, articles, podcasts, and more
4. Data and content synced across Recall’s app and website for easier access

Cons:

1. Only ten free credits to start with
2. Occasionally misses out on key details of the video

ChatGPT For YouTube

If you’re not on the lookout for a highly sophisticated YouTube video summarizer and want something effortless to use that provides an excellent summary with ease, ChatGPT for YouTube could be your best bet. With simplicity in its name, the browser extension is ideal for generating a quick overview to review before watching a video, as it provides a helpful heads-up and an abstract, which undoubtedly aids in better understanding the video.

We admire ChatGPT for YouTube’s speed and seamlessness, as it’s integrated within YouTube’s web interface and is just a click away, working every time without fail. While the extension indeed utilizes ChatGPT in its backend to generate summaries, you don’t need to grant it access to your OpenAI or ChatGPT account, which is a significant relief. You only need to sign in using your Google account, and that’s it.

As for the summary itself, it’s an adequately sized and well-contained paragraph, followed by a five-point list that covers the video’s key aspects. As previously mentioned, it’s great to get a glimpse of what’s to come in the video. There’s a transcript feature as well, but it didn’t work for us and seemed broken, likely due to an error on the developer’s end. Despite its simplicity, ChatGPT for YouTube isn’t free, but it does offer seven free credits per week. After that, it costs $9.99 a month, which is still reasonable.

Pros:

1. Recommended for a quick heads-up before watching a video
2. Unlike its name, no access to OpenAI or ChatGPT is required
3. Integrated within YouTube’s interface and seamless to use

Cons:

1. The video transcript feature doesn’t work when we tested it
2. Costs a little more for what it offers

YouTube Buddy

Using YouTube Buddy will give you a familiar feeling, as its interface is similar to that of AI models like ChatGPT, Gemini, and others. However, since YouTube Buddy is only available as a website and not a browser extension, it loses points on being seamless. On the bright side, the interface is easy to use and well-organized. Nevertheless, the summaries generated by YouTube Buddy are excellent. They are crisp and to the point, unlikely many that go overboard.

At times, YouTube Buddy incorrectly displays the names shown in the video, whether of products or people, which we believe is due to its reliance on the video’s captions to generate its summary. It’s not a major shortcoming per se, as it’s a one-off occurrence. Since it’s a chatbot, you can ask subsequent follow-up questions after a summary is generated, and it handles them with ease.

YouTube Buddy isn’t as feature-rich, but it gets the job done well. The reason we have included YouTube Buddy in this list is that it’s free to use, or at least incredibly generous, as it offers community tokens that we couldn’t exhaust after generating multiple YouTube video summaries. Since we couldn’t find a price list or a paid tier, it’s safe to assume that YouTube Buddy is free to use, which is a significant advantage over YouTube video summarizers.

Pros:

1. Free to use (more than enough community tokens available)
2. The quality of summaries is very good
3. Familiar interface that’s clean and well-laid out

Cons:

1. Only available as a website and not as a browser extension
2. Sometimes gets the names shown in videos wrong

Glarity

If you’re looking for an out-and-out feature-rich YouTube Video Summarizer, say hello to Glarity. To begin with, Glarity supports 12 AI models, including ChatGPT, Claude, and Glarity’s own AI, among others. It even lets you enter custom OpenAI, Azure, and Gemini APIs, making it the perfect choice for developers. Glarity is available as a browser extension for almost every popular browser, including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Opera, and Safari. The extension feels like a natural extension to YouTube’s web interface, making it seamless.

We found the summaries generated in the default mode and through Claude to be very detailed and concise. The summaries weren’t just boring paragraphs or mere bullet points; they felt lively because of the generous use of emojis. In addition to the YouTube video translator, Glarity also offers various other features, including a translator, text summarizer, rephraser, code explainer, and more. Glarity appears as a pop-up on search result pages, emails, and more, prompting you to explore the related features it has to offer.

As far as YouTube video summaries are concerned, Glarity also features a built-in chatbot to answer your follow-up questions, which it does so quite effectively. Moreover, it has a section called “Key Moments,” which does what it says and lists out the key moments of the corresponding YouTube video. There’s also the usual transcript mode, which presents the video’s captions along with timestamps, allowing you to access them easily. Such a well-made extension and extensive feature list doesn’t come free, but Glarity does offer 20000 free tokens that are easy to exhaust quickly.

To continue using the extension for free, you’ll need to opt for ChatGPT’s AI model instead of Glarity by signing in to your OpenAI account. However, for certain exclusive features and additional tokens, you’ll need to purchase Glarity’s paid plans, which start at $7.49 per month when billed annually, making Glarity one of the more affordable options on our list.

Pros:

1. Among the most feature-rich YouTube Video Summarizers on this list
2. Offers multiple AI models to choose from, making it ideal for developers with API keys
3. Key Moments is a handy feature to be present in a YouTube Video Summarizer

Cons:

1. Free credits can be exhausted quite quickly
2. Can be a little confusing for some users

NoteGPT

NoteGPT is a YouTube video summarizer that every student and researcher should have. If you often use YouTube videos for studying, researching, or learning efficiently, there is no better way to do it than with NoteGPT. It takes summarizing YouTube videos to a whole new level by not just presenting the video’s summary, but also presenting detailed mind maps, transcripts, and chapter-wise highlights of the video, even if the YouTube video doesn’t have chapters to begin with. Everything is stored on NoteGPT’s Workspace and is incredibly well-organized. Additionally, NoteGPT is also available as a browser extension.

The summarizer provides a detailed summary, presented both in paragraph form and as bulleted points, for easier understanding of the video. It’s undoubtedly among the better summarizers we’ve come across, and is ideally suited for students and researchers. The mind maps feature creates concise flowcharts for a better understanding of the video, which is a neat feature. Another thoughtful feature is the option to summarize entire YouTube playlists, which many students would appreciate. Unfortunately, this is a feature that you’d need to opt in for with NoteGPT’s paid plans.

Like most other YouTube video summarizers, NoteGPT also houses a built-in chatbot to answer questions related to the generated YouTube video summaries, and it’s nothing to complain about. In addition to the standard features, NoteGPT offers a wide range of other tools, including a PDF summarizer, a podcast generator, a math solver, a PPT maker, and many more. NoteGPT isn’t free, but with its vast feature set on offer, you wouldn’t mind paying just over $2 a month for its basic plan or just under $7 a month for its Pro plan when billed annually, which is such a bargain.

Pros:

1. Very well suited for students and researchers
2. Mind maps creator is a helpful addition
3. Houses a lot more useful tools, such as a PPT generator, PDF summarizer, and more
4. Everything is neatly presented on the NoteGPT workspace

Cons:

Nothing as such, except for being paid, but it’s very well worth paying for.

Eightify

Eightify is straight-up a well-done YouTube video summarizer for the masses. To begin with, it’s integrated within YouTube’s interface for easier access. In addition to being available as a browser extension, Eightify is also available as a mobile app on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Eightify is relatively quick to generate summaries of YouTube videos.

Eightify’s primary focus is on generating appropriate summaries, which it offers in four separate styles, a feature that sets it apart. You get to choose between funny, insightful, actionable, and controversial styles of summaries, all of which change the style of summary accordingly. Other than that, you can choose between a list and a Q&A style of summaries, giving you even more control over the style of summary you’d like. Lastly, you can also opt for a short, detailed, or let Eightify generate a summary of the required length.

If you would like an even more elaborate summary, you can switch to Eightify’s timestamped summary mode, which summarizes the video by listing down the relevant timestamps. Alongside this, there’s a transcript mode which jots down the video’s captions, and also a TLDR mode to summarize the video’s comments, which is a unique little trick unlocked behind Eightify’s paid tier. Although not free, Eightify does offer a one-week free trial before you can subscribe to its Pro tier, which starts at $4.99 per month when billed annually.

Pros:

1. Very well integrated within YouTube’s web interface and also available as an app
2. Multiple styles enhance the generated summary
3. It can also summarize YouTube video comments

Cons:

1. Some features are locked behind a paywall
2. The browser extension sometimes faces scaling issues

Krisp

Krisp pushes the absolute limits of simplicity as it’s the best no-nonsense YouTube video summarizer. For starters, Krisp is totally free to use. Apart from a YouTube video summarizer, Krisp also offers a range of additional useful tools, including an AI Notes Taker, meeting assistant, meeting recorder, transcriber, and more tools geared for professionals.

It’s a reasonably basic utility, as all you need to do is paste the YouTube video’s link and have Krisp summarize it for you in a few seconds. All you can do with the generated summary is download it as a text file or copy it. All things considered, Krisp is ideal for those who want a presentable summary of a YouTube video and nothing more.

The summaries are pretty good to begin with, as they are adequately detailed and outlined, which is all you’d want from a good YouTube video summary. There’s no AI chat support to ask further questions or set your summary preferences, which is a tradeoff you’ll have to make considering Krisp is free.

Pros:

1. Free to use
2. Host of other features on offer, such as AI Notes Taker and meeting assistant
3. Allows downloading the summaries, something that not many offer

Cons:

1. Lacks features
2. No browser extension available

Summarize YouTube Videos Effectively With These AI Summarizers

Summarizing YouTube videos has become child’s play thanks to dedicated AI agents in the form of browser extensions and websites, all of which work well to a large extent. As far as the widely popular chatbots like Google Gemini, ChatGPT, and Perplexity are concerned, we would pick ChatGPT, followed by Gemini and Perplexity.

On the other hand, Recall, Glarity, and Eightify are our top recommendations if you would like a dedicated AI model generating YouTube video summaries for you. If you are a student or researcher, we highly recommend installing NoteGPT without hesitation, as it’s a game-changer for those who study using YouTube videos. For other casual users, you can’t go wrong with Krisp, ChatGPT for YouTube, and YouTube Buddy, for their simplistic and no-nonsense approach.

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