I made this video to demonstrate how to use ChatGPT to quickly summarize an article, whether it’s a blog post, news story, research paper, or even a YouTube transcript.
We’re all overwhelmed by information — and sometimes you just need the TL;DR. ChatGPT is perfect for distilling longform content into a few key points, especially if you’re doing research, creating summaries, or building swipe files.
Here’s how I approach it.
Step 1: Paste the article text
You can either paste the full content directly into ChatGPT, or if it’s too long, break it into chunks. I usually say:
“Summarize the following article in 3–5 key points. Keep it concise and in plain language.”
Then I paste the content and let it go to work.
Step 2: Refine the format
After the first summary, I’ll often follow up with:
- “Now rewrite that as a bullet list”
- “Can you add a one-sentence takeaway at the end?”
- “Highlight any action steps or recommendations”
This is especially helpful for:
- Creating internal team summaries
- Generating newsletter content
- Pulling quotes or statistics for social media
In the video, I show how I summarized a 3,000-word SEO guide into a 150-word digest with a CTA — great for link roundups or content curation.
Step 3: Summarize from a URL (indirectly)
ChatGPT can’t browse the web directly, but if you use browser extensions like WebChatGPT or paste in the article manually, it can summarize almost anything.
For YouTube videos, I also show how to paste in transcripts and generate summaries, timestamps, or even descriptions.
Are you currently summarizing articles for your own use, or turning them into content for clients or readers?