Summarize YouTube Videos with AI: A Free Time-Saving Guide

We’ve all been there — spending hours watching content on YouTube, only to find ourselves skipping through videos to catch the main ideas and key points.

It can be frustrating, especially when you’re in a hurry. But what if I told you there’s an easier way to digest all that information without having to watch the entire video?

In this post, I’m going to introduce you to an amazing AI prompt that I personally developed to help summarize entire YouTube videos, breaking them down into actionable steps, key points, and chapters.

By using this simple prompt, you can quickly extract the essence of any video without the need for expensive Chrome extensions or complicated software. Sounds great, right?

I created this prompt to save my own time, and I’m confident it will be of great help for you too.

I’m excited to show you how this AI prompt works — let’s get started!

You can also check out my YouTube video for a step-by-step tutorial on how to quickly generate summaries for YouTube videos using AI Prompt and Tools!

Understanding My AI Prompt to Summarize Videos

I don’t just want you to copy and paste this prompt to get the output. Before you do that, it’s very important to understand each element of this prompt.

This way, even if you’re a beginner in prompt engineering, you can customize it to fit your unique needs.

You can use this single prompt to summarize YouTube videos, blog posts, or even meeting notes. Sounds cool, right? Understanding each part of the prompt makes it easier to adjust. You get exactly what you need in no time!

So, how does this work? I’ve broken down the prompt into three main sections: Role, Task, and Context.

1. Role: Here, we instruct the AI to act as an expert in analyzing and summarizing YouTube video scripts. For example, you might specify ChatGPT or another AI tool like Claude or Gemini. This helps the AI focus on providing precise answers related to analyzing and summarizing videos.
2. Task: In this section, you outline the specific action you want the AI to perform. For instance, you’re telling the AI to summarize a YouTube video based on its transcript. The AI is instructed to break down the content into key information, actionable steps, bullet points, and chapters, making it easy to follow and implement. Your summary should be clear, concise, and well-structured, highlighting the most important takeaways.
3. Context: This part provides additional information that the AI needs to perform the task effectively. For example, you might mention that you’ll provide the video transcript in multiple parts if necessary. This ensures that the AI understands the scope and can handle lengthy transcripts efficiently.

By understanding each element of this prompt, you empower yourself to customize it for various applications. Whether you’re summarizing educational YouTube videos, blog posts, or even meeting notes, this prompt is versatile enough to handle it all.

Why is this important? Customizing your prompt based on your specific needs can significantly enhance the quality of the summaries you receive. It ensures that the AI focuses on what’s most relevant to you, saving you even more time and effort.

Now that you understand the components of the prompt, let’s explore deeper into how you can use it to summarize any YouTube video efficiently.

Getting Video Transcript From YouTube

Alright, now let’s walk through the practical steps of summarizing a YouTube video using my AI prompt. I’ll demonstrate this with a video from my channel titled “Use This Free AI Trick to Write Unique Content for Blog Posts.” This video is over 10 minutes long, making it a great candidate for summarization.

Step 1: Select Your Video

First, head over to your YouTube channel and choose a video that’s longer than 10 minutes. In this case, we’ll use the aforementioned video.

Step 2: Use an AI Tool

Next, I’m going to use a tool called Claude for summarizing. You can also opt for other large language models like ChatGPT or Gemini, but for this example, we’ll stick with Claude.

Step 3: Input the Prompt

Once you’re on Claude, paste the prompt you’ve created for summarizing videos. After entering the prompt, Claude will ask a series of questions to gather the necessary information.

Step 4: Provide Video Title

The first question will be: “What is the title of the video?”

• Go back to your selected video, copy the title, and paste it into Claude. Then hit enter.

Step 5: Provide Video Length

Next, Claude will ask: “What is the length of the YouTube video?”

• Open your video again to check its length. For our example, the video is 12 minutes and 25 seconds long. Enter this length into Claude and press enter.

Handling Longer Videos with AI Summarization

When summarizing longer YouTube videos, it’s important to break the transcript into manageable segments. Let me explain you why this approach is essential and how to do it effectively using my AI prompt.

Why Break Transcripts into Parts?

The reason Claude and other large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT or Gemini request the transcript in smaller segments is due to their processing limits. These models can struggle to handle extensive instructions or large amounts of text all at once. When faced with too many words or unclear directives, they may get confused and fail to focus on the most important details.

By providing the transcript in smaller, well-defined parts, you can ensure that the AI can deliver more accurate and useful responses. This method enhances the model’s ability to comprehend the content and generate a summary that truly captures the essence of the video.

Steps to Provide the Transcript

1. Access the Video Transcript:
   • Go to your YouTube video and click on the More option.
   • Scroll down to find and click on the Show Transcript button.
2. Copy the First Segment:
   • For the first request, copy the transcript from 0 minutes to 10 minutes. Paste it into Claude when prompted.
   • Click the Submit button.
3. Provide the Second Segment:
   • After submitting the first part, Claude AI will ask for the next segment, typically starting from the 11-minute mark.
   • Repeat the process: copy the transcript from the 11-minute to 20-minute mark, paste it into Claude, and press enter.

Reviewing the Summary

Once you’ve provided both parts of the transcript, Claude will start summarizing the video. Here’s what you can expect in the summary:

• Key Information: A concise overview of the main ideas presented in the video.
• Actionable Steps: Specific recommendations or strategies that viewers can implement.
• Chapters: A breakdown of the video content into easily navigable sections.
• Additional Insights: Any extra thoughts or perspectives shared in the video.

Customizing the AI Prompt for Longer Videos

When dealing with longer videos, such as those exceeding 20 or 30 minutes, you can easily customize your AI prompt to ensure effective summarization. Here’s how you can modify the prompt to handle longer video transcripts efficiently.

Steps to Customize the Prompt

1. Original Prompt Structure:
   • As a reminder, your original prompt should include instructions for breaking the video transcript into segments.
2. Add Extra Steps for Longer Videos:
   • To summarize videos that are longer than 20 minutes, you need to modify a specific part of your prompt.
   • Here’s how you can adjust the lines in your prompt:
3. Original Lines:
   • “Could you provide the transcript segment from 11 minutes to 20 minutes?”
4. Customized Lines:
   • Change it to: “Could you provide the transcript segment from 21 minutes to 30 minutes?”
5. Final Adjustments:
   • Ensure you include a condition in your prompt that instructs the AI to ask for a third segment if the video duration is longer than 30 minutes.

Now you have understood the power of AI prompt for video summarization, its time to grab this prompt, here it is:

Role: You are an expert social media strategist tasked with creating viral content for various platforms.

Task: Your goal is to craft engaging, shareable posts that resonate with the target audience, drive significant engagement, and provide clear value.

Context:

Input Parameters:

Post Topic: [INSERT_TOPIC]

Social Platform: [INSERT_PLATFORM]

Instructions:

1. Analyze the Topic and Platform

Understand the platform's unique features, audience demographics, and content preferences for [INSERT_PLATFORM].

Example: LinkedIn might require a professional tone, while Instagram would benefit from a more casual, visually engaging approach.

2. Create a Detailed Audience Persona

Craft an audience persona specific to [INSERT_PLATFORM], considering the following factors:

Age Range: What is the typical age demographic on this platform?

Professional Background: Are they business professionals, entrepreneurs, students, or hobbyists?

Interests: What are their hobbies, goals, and common interests?

Pain Points: What challenges or frustrations are they facing?

Aspirations: What are they trying to achieve, either personally or professionally?

3. Craft the Post Based on These Guidelines:

a. Know Your Audience:

Adapt the tone and style of the content to match the platform’s audience. Example: Use a professional tone for LinkedIn, Quora, Pinterest and a casual, playful tone for Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook.

b. Address Pain Points and Desires:

Identify a relevant problem or aspiration related to the post topic, and offer actionable steps toward solving that issue or achieving the goal. Example: “Struggling with low website traffic? Here’s how you can turn it around in just a week…”

c. Focus on Value:

Provide actionable advice, tips, or insights.

Use how-to guides, listicles, or other content formats that are easily digestible and practical. Example: "3 Free Tools to Instantly Improve Your SEO Game."

d. Incorporate Trends:

Research current trending topics or hashtags that relate to the post topic and platform.

Incorporate these trends naturally into the content to boost relevance. Example: Weaving in hashtags like #AIforBusiness if AI is trending in your niche.

e. Optimize for Virality:

Use an attention-grabbing headline or opening line to hook the audience.

Include storytelling elements that evoke an emotional connection and drive engagement. Example: "I was stuck with zero traffic for months, but then I tried these 3 simple tips, and now my website is booming!"

f. Visual Appeal:

Suggest an eye-catching visual element or describe how the post's visuals should look to boost engagement. Example: For Instagram, suggest a bold, clean image with minimal text overlay or a colorful infographic.

g. Call-to-Action:

Include a clear and compelling call-to-action that encourages interaction, such as liking, sharing, commenting, or clicking a link. Example: "Tag a friend who needs to hear this!"

4. Generate Post Content Based on Platform Length Guidelines:

Twitter: Max 240 characters.

Instagram: Max 2200 characters.

LinkedIn: Max 1300 characters.

Facebook: Max 400 characters.

5. Suggest 3-5 Relevant Hashtags:

Choose hashtags that align with both the post topic and platform trends to maximize discoverability. Example: #SEOtips #DigitalMarketing #BusinessGrowth

6. Virality Potential Explanation:

Provide a brief explanation of why this post is likely to go viral, referencing elements like:

Audience targeting

Emotional storytelling

Platform relevance

Trending hashtags

Actionable value

Output Format:

Platform: [Specified Platform]

Audience Persona: [Brief description of audience]

Post Content: [Generated post text with appropriate tone and content structure]

Visual Element Description: [If applicable, describe the accompanying visual]

Hashtags: [List of 3-5 hashtags]

Virality Potential: [Explanation of why the post could go viral]

Example Custom Prompt:

If the length of the video transcript is more than 20 minutes, ask for the following:

1. Could you provide the transcript segment from 0 minutes to 10 minutes?

2. Could you provide the transcript segment from 11 minutes to 20 minutes?

3. Could you provide the transcript segment from 21 minutes to 30 minutes?

Using the Customized Prompt

By implementing these changes, you ensure that Claude or any other LLM you are using will effectively manage longer video transcripts by breaking them down into smaller sections. This will enhance the accuracy and readability of the summaries generated.

Summary of the Customization Benefits

• Efficiency: Allows for better handling of longer videos, ensuring all key points are captured.
• Clarity: By segmenting the transcript, the AI can focus on specific parts, resulting in a more precise summary.
• Flexibility: You can further customize the prompt for videos exceeding 30 minutes by adding additional segments as needed.

Other Free AI Tools To Summarize YouTube Videos

You can also summarize YouTube videos using free AI tools. One of the best options is YouTube Transcript Summarizer (Glasp), a browser extension that automatically generates quick summaries from video transcripts, saving you time.

Another great tool is Keywords Everywhere, which allows you to paraphrase and condense transcripts into clear, concise summaries. Its Chrome extension helps you to summarize videos using ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini with one click

Boosting Website Traffic with AI-Generated Video Summaries

With so much content out there, it’s harder than ever to stand out. But there’s good news. AI-generated video summaries can help you boost your website traffic and improve your overall content strategy. Let’s break it down in simple terms.

How AI Summaries Can Improve YouTube Channel SEO

YouTube is packed with videos, and getting yours noticed can feel impossible. But optimizing your video content for SEO can make a huge difference. One way to do this is through AI-generated summaries.

Here’s how it works. When you upload a video, you need to tell YouTube what it’s about. Usually, this means writing a description and using keywords. However, creating the perfect description can take time. That’s where AI summaries come in.

• AI tools like SurferSEO, or VidIQ can help you quickly generate keyword-rich summaries.
• These summaries enhance YouTube’s understanding of your content, boosting search visibility.
• Use AI to auto-generate video chapters for better viewer engagement, leading to improved video rankings.
• When your video is better organized and more searchable, YouTube rewards it with more exposure in relevant searches.

AI-generated video summaries can improve your YouTube SEO by creating accurate, keyword-rich descriptions and clickable chapters, boosting visibility and engagement.

Repurposing Video Summaries into Blog Posts and Social Media Content

One of the coolest things about AI-generated summaries is that they’re super versatile. You can use them for more than just YouTube. In fact, they can save you tons of time when creating content for blogs or social media.

Expanding Video Summaries for Blog Content

Let’s say you have a 10-minute video on “How to Start a Blog.” Instead of writing a blog post from scratch, you can take the AI-generated summary and expand on it. Add some personal insights, examples, and maybe a few tips you didn’t include in the video. Now, you’ve got a blog post that not only provides value to your audience but also helps with SEO.

Breaking Summaries into Social Media Snippets

Want to take it a step further? Break that summary into smaller parts and post them on social media. For instance, post a quick tip on Instagram or Twitter that links back to your blog or YouTube channel. Doing this keeps your audience engaged and drives more traffic to your site.

Tools to Make Repurposing Easier

Some tools that can help with repurposing your content are Grammarly, Copy.ai, and Otter.ai and Aiwebranker. They make editing, rewriting, and transcribing videos much easier.

Final Takeaways for Success

Using my customizable AI prompt, you can summarize YouTube videos of any length, breaking them into clear, actionable steps, key points, and chapters.

Whether you’re summarizing a short 10-minute video or one over 30 minutes, this prompt can save you time and enhance productivity. Start experimenting with it today and see how much more efficient your workflow becomes!

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