The Best AI Summarization Tool Part 1: Wordtune Read vs Upword

Introduction:

Have you ever read something just to forget the majority of it shortly after? After a night filled with reading, you woke up the next day remembering very little of what you read?

You’re not alone. Studies show that new information without reinforcement is quickly forgotten — roughly 56% of this information is forgotten in one hour, 66% after a day, and 75% after six days.

If I forget ~70% of what I read, how can I make sure the 30% is what I need to know?

By summarizing.

Productive reading is about more than reading. It’s about cutting through all of the noise within large bodies of text and gathering the key information (aka summarizing).

Identifying the key points from an article/document/etc and referencing them is a great way to make sure you actually remember what you read.

Being able to create summaries (manually scanning, extracting key ideas, re-phrasing, adding comments, and turning them into coherent writing) is a great skill to have, but it’s time-consuming.

What if I don’t have time to create my own summaries?

Good news: there are AI-powered applications that summarize for you and help you be more productive with your readings. This can help you read lengthy documents and articles by extracting the most important information from articles and documents (this means they automatically summarize them for you!)

Wordtune Read and Upword are two AI-powered applications that help you read long documents and articles. Both applications do this by extracting the most important information from the articles/documents you need to understand & showcasing it to you in a simple format.

The most exciting thing about these applications [possibly even more exciting than the fact that they act as your very own personal note taker] is that they are the next step in software. Until now, software was not involved in ideation. It was only able to help you after ideation, during the second part of the knowledge workflow. This new era of technology, which is classified as Generative Tech, works with us from the beginning of any project. By kicking off the knowledge-creation workflow and opening the door for user collaboration, Wordtune Read and Upword are resolving zero-to-one problems with summarization solutions.

So, what’s the difference between Wordtune Read and Upword?

In short, Wordtune Read’s AI works for you while Upword’s AI works with you.

Wordtune Read’s AI works for you to extract important information from articles/documents so that you can skim key points. It helps you get to the point of long documents, instantly summarizing key information & saving you time.

Upword’s AI, on the other hand, works with you to create personalized summaries. Like Wordtune Read, it generates summaries of content into knowledge snippets, but it also offers a full editor to personalize the summaries and essays for users to finally publish them as audiobooks. This helps you learn and retain the content much more quickly since the summary is personalized to your interests and learning preferences.

Wordtune Read vs. Upword at a glance

Pricing:

Upword Pro Plan

• $12.50/month *students get 66% off

WordTune Read Pro Plan

• $39.99/month *students get 30% off

Features:

Upword Pro Plan

• AI notes (automatic summaries of the text)
• Manual notes (HL, comments, attachments)
• Uplight (auto-highlighting)
• From layout to summary doc — beautiful reading document
• Listen mode
• Library management (Manage your notes, articles in folders and labels)
• Priority support
• Chrome Extension

WordTune Read Pro Plan

• AI notes (automatic summaries of the text
• Topics analysis
• Spotlight (re-summarization tool)
• Unlimited document length
• Priority processing
• Priority support
• Chrome Extension

Devices Supported:

Upword

• Desktop only
• Chrome Extension (100% free)

WordTune Read

• Desktop only
• Chrome Extension (3 free articles per month)

Supported Files:

Upword

• Currently supports URLs & PDFs limited to 12MB and 100 pages

Wordtune Read

• Currently supports URLs & PDFs limited to 100MB and 300 pages.

Language:

Upword

• English only (AI works only in English, but you can upload and manually summarize articles in any language)

Wordtune Read

• Wordtune Read currently supports documents written in English only

Customer Support:

Upword

• Chat support typically replies in a few minutes
• Comprehensive support article database
• Feature Request/public roadmap

Wordtune Read

• Chat support typically replies in 2 days
• Comprehensive support article database

In a Nutshell

Wordtune Read and Upword both offer high-quality AI-powered summaries and user-friendly platforms. The main difference lies in their content workflows: Upword delivers an integrated, entire content-to-knowledge workflow. Wordtune Read is primarily a summarization app.

AI tools at this point in time can help you become a better note-taker, summarizer, and learner. Especially if you utilize tools like Upword and Wordtune Read as a supplement to your learning, you can produce more content and streamline your workflow without jeopardizing the quality of your content.

Interested? You can learn more about Upword’s content-to-knowledge workflow here.

You can read more about Psychologist Herman Ebbinghaus’s studies here.