Free · Chat & research · 9 of 9 tools · updated Oct 17, 2026
Free AI tools to summarize articles, videos & threads
AssemblyAI is the strongest tool to summarize articles, videos & threads you can use without paying, at 26/100. What you get for nothing: Free credits; then per hour of audio. 9 of the 9 tools tracked for this job have a free tier, an open-source licence, or are free outright. It is also the top-ranked tool for this job overall, free or not.
Same evidence score as the ranking — GitHub stars, Hacker News mentions, release activity, free access — recomputed nightly, never sold. See all 9 tools to summarize articles, videos & threads.
Top 3
evidence / 100
+ Strong accuracy plus built-in audio intelligence (speaker labels, chapters, PII redaction) and LeMUR for asking questions of a transcript.
− No consumer app, and per-hour pricing adds up on high volumes compared with self-hosted Whisper.
+ Answers are grounded strictly in your uploaded PDFs, Docs, URLs and YouTube videos with citations, and Audio Overviews turn them into a two-host podcast.
− Sources are capped per notebook and the free tier limits daily queries and audio generations.
+ Q&A searches your whole Notion workspace plus Slack and Google Drive, and AI autofill keeps database summaries current.
− Since 2025 the full AI is bundled only into the Business tier, which is a steep jump for small teams.
All 9, side by side
| Tool | Score | Pricing | What you get free | Platforms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AssemblyAI | 26 | Free tier | Free credits; then per hour of audio | api |
| NotebookLM | 16 | Free tier | Free; NotebookLM Plus via Google AI Pro $19.99/mo | web, ios, android |
| Notion AI | 11 | Free tier | Included in Business plan $20/user/mo (annual) | web, mac, windows, ios, android |
 Glasp | 10 | Free tier | no limits published | web, chrome-extension, ios |
 Wordtune | 10 | Free tier | Advanced from $9.99/mo | web, chrome-extension, ios |
 Eightify | 9 | Free tier | no limits published | chrome-extension, ios |
 ChatPDF | 8 | Free tier | no limits published | web |
 Elicit | 8 | Free tier | Plus from $12/mo | web |
 summarize.tech | 8 | Free tier | no limits published | web |
A free tier counts, and so does an open-source licence you can self-host — both are in the table, so a tool that is only free for a trial is not here.
Head to head: AssemblyAI vs NotebookLM AssemblyAI vs Notion AI NotebookLM vs Notion AI