Recommendations
Summarize a document
The tools and models best suited to this task, ranked on a transparent weighted score. Adjust the filters to match your skill, budget, and privacy needs.
Skill level
Budget
Output
Claude
Anthropic · Free + paid tiers
Long documents and careful, nuanced writing
Why it fits
Watch out: Not a media generator
Starter prompt
Here is a document: <doc> [paste] </doc> Task: [what you need]. Return [format]. Quote the exact passages you rely on and flag anything ambiguous.
NotebookLM
Google · Free + paid tiers
Questions across your own documents
Why it fits
Watch out: Limited to the material you provide
Starter prompt
Based only on the uploaded sources, [question]. Cite the source and section for each point. If the answer isn't there, say so.
All matches, ranked
Compare top picksClaude
Anthropic
A careful assistant that excels at long documents, nuanced writing, coding, and reviewing contracts and reports.
ChatGPT
OpenAI
A versatile general-purpose assistant for writing, analysis, coding, and images. The strongest default when you are not sure which tool to use.
Gemini
Google's multimodal assistant, strong for research with search grounding and for users in the Google ecosystem.
NotebookLM
An assistant grounded entirely in the documents you upload — ask questions and get answers cited back to your own sources.
Microsoft Copilot
Microsoft
AI woven into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, with enterprise data protection on business plans.
Anthropic Claude (API)
Anthropic
The model layer behind Claude, suited to long-context, document-heavy, and analysis-heavy applications.
Curated recommendations based on publicly available information and practical usage. Not an exhaustive list of every AI tool.