Best Audio Summarizer Tools - Top 10 AI Audio Summarizers Reviewed
Looking for the best audio summarizer to automatically summarize your podcasts, meetings, and lectures? Audio recordings are everywhere now — from Zoom calls and university lectures to podcast interviews and webinars. But listening back through hours of audio to find the parts that matter wastes time. That’s where an AI audio summarizer comes in: upload or record your audio, and get a written summary in minutes. According to MIT research on meeting productivity, the average professional spends 23 hours per week in meetings, making audio summarization tools more useful than ever.
We tested 10 audio summarizer tools over the past month and compared their accuracy, pricing, and features. Below is what we found. If you want to try one right now, ScreenApp’s audio summarizer works in your browser with no signup required. For AI note-taking specifically, our audio notetaker guide covers tools built for that purpose.
One thing to keep in mind: ChatGPT and other general-purpose chatbots can’t process audio files directly. You’d need to transcribe first, then paste text. Dedicated audio summarizers handle the entire pipeline — transcription, speaker identification, and summarization — in one step.
Quick Picks
- ScreenApp. Best overall. Free plan available | $19/mo annual. Real-time summarization with meeting integration.
- Otter.ai. Best for live meetings. Free 300 min/mo | Pro $8.33/mo annual. Live transcription with speaker labels.
- Notta. Best for multilingual teams. Free tier | Pro $14.99/mo. Supports 100+ languages.
- Mindgrasp. Best for students. $5.99/mo. YouTube integration and LMS support.
Pricing Comparison
| Audio Summarizer | Free Tier | Paid Price | Best For | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ScreenApp | 3 summaries/mo | $19/mo (annual) | All-around audio workflows | 5/5 |
| Otter.ai | 300 min/mo | $8.33/mo (annual) | Live meeting transcription | 4.5/5 |
| Notta | Limited minutes | $14.99/mo | Multilingual teams | 4.5/5 |
| Resoomer | Basic summaries | ~$10/mo | Text + audio summarization | 4/5 |
| Speechelo | Limited demo | $47 one-time | TTS + summarization | 3.5/5 |
| Jasper.ai | 7-day trial | $39/mo (annual) | Content marketers | 4/5 |
| Summarize.tech | Free basic use | $10/mo premium | YouTube video summaries | 4/5 |
| Mindgrasp | 4-day trial | $5.99/mo | Students and online learners | 4.5/5 |
| AssemblyAI | $50 free credits | $0.15/hr streaming | Developers and API users | 4/5 |
| NoteGPT | 15 uses/mo | $9.99/mo | Quick audio notes | 4/5 |
What Is Audio Summarization?
An audio summarizer is a tool that takes long audio recordings and automatically produces short, written summaries of the most important information. Think of it as a smart assistant for your ears — you give it a 60-minute meeting recording, and it gives you a 2-minute read with the main points.
Modern AI audio summarizers use two approaches:
- Extractive: The tool pulls out the most important sentences directly from the transcript.
- Abstractive: The AI understands the overall meaning and writes a summary in its own words, often shorter and more readable.
Most tools in this list combine both methods. They first transcribe your audio to text, then apply AI to identify and condense the main points.
Why Use an Audio Summarizer?
- Save time: Get the main points from a 1-hour recording in under 2 minutes.
- Better retention: Reading a summary helps you remember more than scanning through a recording timeline.
- Searchable records: Text summaries are searchable. Audio files aren’t.
- Share with your team: Send a summary instead of asking colleagues to watch a full recording.
Who uses audio summarizers most?
Students use them for lecture review. Professionals use them for meeting notes and action items. Researchers use them to process interviews. Podcasters use them to create show notes. Journalists use them to pull quotes from recorded conversations.
Tool Reviews
1. ScreenApp
ScreenApp is an all-in-one platform that handles audio recording, transcription, and AI summarization in one place. It condenses audio files into outlines, meeting agendas, and action items.
Price: Free (3 summaries/mo) | Growth $19/mo annual ($30/mo monthly) | Business $50/mo Languages: 100+ Accuracy: 90-95% on clear audio
What we liked:
- Summaries are ready in under a minute for most recordings
- Real-time summarization works during live meetings
- Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams integration built in
- Customizable output: bullet points, paragraphs, or detailed notes
- AI-powered notes extract action items automatically
What could be better:
- Free plan is limited to 3 summaries per month
- Accuracy drops with heavy accents or overlapping speakers
- No dedicated mobile app yet
Best for: Anyone who needs audio summarization bundled with recording and transcription. Works well for meetings, lectures, podcasts, and interviews.
Rating: 5/5 - Try ScreenApp Free
2. Otter.ai
Otter.ai is built specifically for live meeting transcription and summarization. It joins your Zoom, Meet, or Teams calls automatically, records the audio, and produces a summary with speaker labels when the call ends.
Price: Free (300 min/mo, 30 min per call) | Pro $8.33/mo annual ($16.99/mo monthly) | Business $20/mo annual per user Languages: English primarily Accuracy: 90-95%
What we liked:
- Live transcription shows up in real time during calls
- Speaker identification works well with 2-4 participants
- Action items and decisions are flagged automatically
- Integrates with Google Calendar and Slack
What could be better:
- Free tier caps meetings at 30 minutes
- Pro plan limits file imports to 10/month
- Audio-only (no video recording or screen capture)
- Accuracy drops with background noise or non-English accents
Best for: People in frequent meetings who need live transcription and post-meeting summaries.
Rating: 4.5/5
3. Notta
Notta transcribes and summarizes audio in 100+ languages. It’s built for teams that work across regions and need meeting summaries in multiple languages.
Price: Free (limited minutes) | Pro $14.99/mo (1,800 min, 90 min per recording) | Business $27.99/seat/mo (unlimited minutes) Languages: 100+ transcription languages, 40+ translation languages Accuracy: 90-95%
What we liked:
- Real-time summarization alongside audio playback
- Multi-language support is genuinely useful for international teams
- Screen recording with automatic transcription included
- Extracts decisions and action items from meetings
What could be better:
- Free tier has strict minute limits
- No advanced transcript editing tools
- Desktop app can be slow on older machines
Best for: Multilingual teams, journalists processing interviews, and students taking notes on lectures. For more on audio note-taking, see our lecture summarizer guide.
Rating: 4.5/5
4. Resoomer
Resoomer started as a text summarizer and expanded into audio. It handles long audio files (lectures, podcasts, meetings) and lets you control the summary length and detail level.
Price: Free (basic summaries) | Premium ~$10/mo (also available as one-time purchase) Languages: Multiple (primarily English-focused) Accuracy: 85-90%
What we liked:
- Good accuracy control — you can set how detailed the summary should be
- Custom dictionary support for technical jargon
- Works with both text and audio inputs
- One-time purchase option available (no subscription required)
What could be better:
- Audio summarization is secondary to its text features
- Fewer languages than Notta or ScreenApp
- Accuracy is lower on technical or highly nuanced content
Best for: Researchers and academics who work with both text documents and audio recordings.
Rating: 4/5
5. Jasper.ai
Jasper.ai is primarily a marketing content platform, but it includes an audio/video summarizer that converts spoken content into written summaries with chapter breakdowns.
Price: 7-day free trial | Creator $39/mo annual ($49/mo monthly) | Teams $99/mo annual (3 seats) Languages: 30+ Accuracy: 85-90%
What we liked:
- Produces summaries with chapter titles and key insights
- AI writing templates turn summaries into blog posts or social media content
- Integrates with content management systems
- Good for repurposing audio content into written formats
What could be better:
- Expensive for audio summarization alone ($39+/mo)
- Audio features are secondary to its writing tools
- Summary accuracy varies with complex or technical audio
Best for: Content marketers and bloggers who need to turn podcast interviews and webinar recordings into written content.
Rating: 4/5
6. Speechelo
Speechelo combines text summarization with text-to-speech. It’s not a traditional audio summarizer — you give it text, and it creates both a summary and an audio version with natural-sounding voices.
Price: Standard $47 one-time | Pro $97 one-time (includes commercial license) Languages: 30+ voice options Accuracy: 80-85% (summarization)
What we liked:
- One-time pricing (no monthly subscription)
- 30+ voice options with different accents
- Cloud-based, works in your browser
- Good for creating audio versions of summaries
What could be better:
- Not a true audio-in summarizer — it works with text input
- Limited customization for summary output
- Summarization accuracy is below dedicated tools
- Primarily a text-to-speech tool, not a summarizer
Best for: Content creators who need voiceovers and narration more than audio-to-text summarization. If you need to summarize audio files, tools like ScreenApp or Otter.ai are a better fit.
Rating: 3.5/5
7. Summarize.tech
Summarize.tech summarizes YouTube videos and other online audio/video content. Paste a URL, and it generates a timestamped summary broken into sections.
Price: Free (basic summaries, no signup) | Premium $10/mo (200 videos/mo, unlimited daily summaries) Languages: English primarily Accuracy: 85-90%
What we liked:
- No registration required for basic use
- Timestamped summaries let you jump to specific sections
- Clean, minimal interface
- Free tier is genuinely usable
What could be better:
- Only works with online video/audio URLs (no file uploads)
- Requires stable internet connection
- Limited to YouTube and a few other platforms
- No meeting integration or live recording
Best for: Anyone who watches long YouTube videos (lectures, conference talks, tutorials) and wants quick text summaries.
Rating: 4/5
8. Mindgrasp
Mindgrasp is built for students. It summarizes YouTube lectures, generates flashcards from audio content, and integrates with learning management systems.
Price: 4-day free trial | Basic $5.99/mo | Scholar $8.99/mo | Premium $10.99/mo Languages: English primarily Accuracy: 85-90%
What we liked:
- YouTube video summarization is fast and accurate
- Generates flashcards and quizzes from audio content
- LMS integration works with Canvas, Blackboard, and others
- Chrome extension for in-browser summarization
What could be better:
- Limited to English
- Paid subscription required after the 4-day trial
- May miss nuanced points in complex lectures
Best for: College students and online learners who want to summarize lectures and create study materials. See also our quiz generator from audio for similar study tools.
Rating: 4.5/5
9. AssemblyAI
AssemblyAI is a developer-focused API for transcription and summarization. You get $50 in free credits to start, then pay per hour of audio processed.
Price: $50 free credits | Streaming $0.15/hr | Best tier $0.37/hr | Add-ons $0.02-0.05/min each Languages: 99+ Accuracy: 95%+
What we liked:
- Among the most accurate transcription APIs available
- Speaker diarization, sentiment analysis, and summaries built in
- Supports 99+ languages
- Integrates with Zoom, Google Meet, and custom applications
- Strict security and privacy compliance
What could be better:
- No graphical interface — requires coding to use
- Add-on features (speaker ID, summaries) increase the cost
- Not practical for non-technical users
Best for: Developers building audio summarization into their own products, and teams with engineering resources who need an API. For a no-code option with similar accuracy, try ScreenApp’s audio summary API.
Rating: 4/5
10. NoteGPT
NoteGPT is a newer tool that combines audio transcription, summarization, and AI chat. Upload an audio file or paste a YouTube link, and it produces a transcript with a summary you can ask follow-up questions about.
Price: Free (15 uses/mo) | Pro $9.99/mo (1,000 uses) | Pro+ $19/mo (4,000 uses) | Unlimited $29/mo Languages: Multiple Accuracy: 90-95% (claims 99% on clear audio)
What we liked:
- AI chat lets you ask questions about the audio content after summarization
- YouTube summarization works well
- Mind map generation from audio summaries
- Free tier gives 15 uses per month
What could be better:
- Relatively new — less established than Otter.ai or Notta
- Free tier is limited to 15 uses
- Mind map feature is basic compared to dedicated tools
Best for: Users who want to summarize audio and then interact with the content through AI chat and mind maps.
Rating: 4/5
How to Choose an Audio Summarizer
Pick your tool based on what you actually need:
- For meetings: ScreenApp or Otter.ai. Both integrate with Zoom/Meet/Teams and produce summaries with action items. ScreenApp has broader features; Otter.ai is more focused on live transcription.
- For lectures: Mindgrasp if you’re a student (cheap, has flashcards). ScreenApp if you want more flexibility with different audio types.
- For podcasts: Jasper.ai if you need to repurpose audio into written content. Summarize.tech if you just need a quick YouTube summary.
- For developers: AssemblyAI for API access. ScreenApp also has an audio summary API.
- For multilingual audio: Notta (100+ languages). ScreenApp also supports 100+ languages.
- On a budget: Summarize.tech (free, no signup). Otter.ai free tier (300 min/mo). NoteGPT free tier (15 uses/mo).
When comparing tools, look at these factors:
- Audio format support. Most handle MP3, WAV, M4A, and MP4. Check if the tool supports your specific format.
- Real-time vs. uploaded. Do you need live meeting summarization, or are you uploading recorded files?
- Summary output. Some produce bullet points, others write paragraphs. Pick the format that works for your workflow.
- Price per minute. Free tiers vary widely. Otter.ai gives 300 min/mo free; ScreenApp gives 3 complete summaries.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best audio summarizer?
For most people, ScreenApp’s audio summarizer is the best option. It combines recording, transcription, and AI summarization in one tool, supports 100+ languages, and has a free tier. If you only need live meeting transcription, Otter.ai is a strong alternative.
Is there a free AI audio summarizer?
Yes. ScreenApp offers 3 free summaries per month. Otter.ai gives 300 free minutes monthly (30 minutes per call). Summarize.tech is free for YouTube video summaries with no signup. NoteGPT includes 15 free uses per month.
Can AI summarize audio files directly?
Dedicated audio summarizer tools can. You upload an MP3, WAV, M4A, or other audio file, and the tool transcribes and summarizes it automatically. General-purpose AI chatbots like ChatGPT can’t accept audio file uploads in most cases — you’d need to transcribe first, then paste the text.
How accurate are AI audio summarizers?
The best tools reach 90-95% accuracy on clear audio with a single speaker. Accuracy drops with background noise, heavy accents, multiple overlapping speakers, or technical jargon. ScreenApp and AssemblyAI score among the highest in our testing.
Can audio summarizers work with live meetings?
Yes. ScreenApp, Otter.ai, and Notta all provide real-time summarization for Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams meetings. They join the call, record the audio, and produce a summary when the meeting ends.
What audio formats do summarizers support?
Most audio summarizers accept MP3, WAV, M4A, OGG, FLAC, and video formats like MP4 and WebM. ScreenApp handles virtually all common audio and video file types. For specific format needs, check our audio upload tool.
How do audio summarizers compare to just using ChatGPT?
ChatGPT can’t directly process audio files through its standard interface. You’d need to transcribe the audio separately, then paste the transcript into ChatGPT for summarization. Dedicated audio summarizers handle the full pipeline (upload, transcribe, identify speakers, summarize) in one step, which saves time and usually produces better results because the AI has access to audio context like tone and speaker changes.
Can I summarize audio in languages other than English?
Yes. ScreenApp and Notta both support 100+ languages for transcription and summarization. AssemblyAI supports 99+ languages through its API. Most other tools on this list are primarily English-focused, with limited support for other languages.
Conclusion
The best audio summarizer depends on what you need:
- All-around use: ScreenApp has the widest feature set with recording, transcription, and AI summarization together
- Live meetings: Otter.ai is purpose-built for real-time call transcription
- Students: Mindgrasp is the cheapest option with study-specific features
- Developers: AssemblyAI provides a robust API with $50 in free credits
- Multilingual: Notta handles 100+ languages with team collaboration
AI audio summarizer tools turn hours of recordings into short, readable summaries. Whether you’re processing meeting recordings, lecture audio, podcast episodes, or interview tapes, the tools above cover the range from free to professional-grade.
Ready to try it? Summarize your first audio file free with ScreenApp. No credit card needed.
For related tools, check out our podcast summarizer, voice memo summarizer, and meeting summarizer. If you work more with video, see our review of the 10 best video summarizers. Also worth reading: our Voxtral Transcribe 2 review covering Mistral’s new transcription model at half the cost of Whisper, and our analysis of hardware vs software AI notetakers in 2026.
