5 Best AI Tools to Summarize YouTube Videos

Why you need a summarizer? Most of us spend too much time on YouTube. A good AI tool gives you instant highlights, timestamped topics, and concise takeaways — no more watching a 40-min video for 2 key ideas.

✔ The manual approach is painful:

Export transcript → upload to ChatGPT → write custom prompt → format output → paste into notes… who has time?

1Monica — All-round browser AI

Monica

Free Chrome extension · 2M+ users

A general-purpose browser AI, but it has a solid built-in YouTube summarizer. With one click, it creates a broad overview plus timestamped breakdown right on the page.

⚡ Summarize on page

⏱ Timestamp sections

📋 Easy copy & paste

Good for quick, broad overviews. Missing deeper research features, but free to start.

2MyMap — Visual mind map magic

MyMap

Different approach

Paste any YouTube URL and MyMap turns the video into an infinite canvas mind map. Great for breaking down long podcasts, courses, or interview research.

🗺 Infinite canvas

💬 Chat with the map

👥 Real-time collab

Best for visual learners. The UX isn't as straightforward as some others, but a unique perspective.

3Otto — Research copilot library

Otto

Minimal UI

Presents itself as a research tool — "the fastest way to do research." Click the Chrome extension on any video and get an instant summary on the left, plus a clean chat window to ask anything from the transcript.

📡 Centralized video library

✏️ Chat with saved videos

🤖 Latest AI models

Otto stores all saved videos in one place — chat with any of them via @. Great for research collections.

4Readwise Reader — For serious readers

Readwise Reader

Daily-driver favorite

More than a summarizer — a second brain app. Save YouTube videos, highlight exact text from the transcript, and invoke the Ghost Reader to get preset prompts like "extract key takeaways."

🖍 Highlight transcript text

⚙️ Ghost Reader presets

🔗 Auto-export to Notes (Notion, Obsidian)

Perfect for building a knowledge base. Might feel a bit overwhelming for newcomers.

5Recall — Editor's choice 🏆

⭐ Highly recommended — best overall

Recall

The one the author loves

With the browser extension, Recall turns any YouTube video into a clean formatted summary with timestamps. You can edit highlighted sections, share via link, or export to Markdown.

🗂 Smart category folders

📇 Multiple-choice flashcards

🕸 Knowledge graph visualization

Best summaries Categorized library Learning & retention

"Recall is by far my favorite YouTube summary tool. The wording of its summaries is the most concise and actionable." — Creator

⚡ Snap decision

Monica Free, on-page overview

MyMap Mind map visual learning

Otto Research + centralized library

Readwise Reader Deep highlighting + second brain

Recall Best all-round + flashcards + graph

Best free starter: Monica Best for deep learning: Recall Best for note-takers: Readwise Reader

🔄 Final Takeaway

All five tools will save you serious hours. The creator’s personal favorite is Recall — for its clean auto-categorization, generated questions and links between videos by key concepts.

But if you want a quick free start, Monica is worth trying. And if you’re a visual learner, don’t skip MyMap to map out long-form content.

👉 The best tool is the one you'll actually use daily. Start with one, and level up your YouTube digestion.

💡 Try this workflow: Use Recall or Otto for daily summaries, sync long reads to Readwise, and use MyMap when tackling a deep 2-hour conversation.

Top 5 AI Tools to Summarize YouTube Videos

⚡ Snap decision

🔄 Final Takeaway