One tiny change to your prompt turns Claude’s bland recap into a sharp, strategic breakdown you can actually use.
If you’re like most people using Claude (or ChatGPT, or any LLM), you’ve probably hit “summarize this” a thousand times. Guilty as charged—I used to do it all the time. But after playing around with prompts for months, I’ve come to one clear conclusion: “summarize” is the most overrated command in the AI world. It’s not useless, but it’s almost never what you really need.
Summaries are great for quick scans—like boiling down a massive email chain or a rambling meeting recording. But when you’re short on time and still want real value, you’re not after compression. You’re after insight.
A summary shortens the text. Insight changes how you think about it. And with one smarter prompt, Claude can deliver the second one almost every time.
Why “summarize” usually disappoints
Tell an AI to summarize, and it hears, “Make this shorter.” So it dutifully condenses everything, keeps the original structure, touches every major point, and hands you back a mini-version of what you already read. That’s handy, but it’s basically fancy copy-paste. No real thinking happens.
Think about the last great executive summary, analyst note, or briefing you actually loved. It didn’t just repeat the document in smaller font—it told you what’s important, what’s surprising, what’s shaky, and what you should actually do next. That’s the leap from “here’s the gist” to “here’s what it means.”
The prompt I now use instead
This is the exact one I’ve settled on after tons of trial and error. It works ridiculously well with Claude (I’ve tested it on everything from reports to research papers). Copy-paste it as-is, or tweak it to fit your style:
“Read this document carefully. Then do the following:
- Identify the 3–5 non-obvious insights—things that aren’t spelled out directly but become clear when you connect the dots across the content. Skip anything the author already calls out as a ‘key takeaway’ or ‘main point.’
- Spot the tensions or contradictions. Where does the piece argue against itself? Where does it clash with common sense or industry norms? What questions does it leave hanging?
- Nail the ‘so what.’ If a smart, time-strapped executive could only walk away with one actionable takeaway from this whole thing, what would it be—and why does it matter?
- Call out what’s missing. What important question does this document raise but conveniently ignore? What would you want to dig into next?”
Why this four-part prompt is so much better
Instead of one lazy word, you’re giving Claude four clear jobs that flip it from “helpful librarian” mode into “sharp analyst” mode.
- The non-obvious insights bit forces deeper thinking. By banning the obvious highlights, you’re pushing for second-level connections—the kind you only see when someone really reads between the lines.
- Hunting for tensions and contradictions is where the magic happens. Almost every document has some internal friction (optimistic revenue projections next to worried market commentary, for example). Humans often gloss over it on the first pass; Claude catches it reliably.
- The “so what” forces ruthless prioritization. No more laundry lists of equally important bullets—this makes the model pick the single most valuable implication.
- Asking what’s missing is surprisingly powerful. It turns Claude into a critic, surfacing the gaps that often become your next move or biggest red flag. People love sharing this section with their teams.
Quick tweaks for different kinds of docs
The base prompt crushes most use cases, but add one line to make it even stronger:
- Research papers/academic stuff: “Also flag any methodological choices (sample size, stats approach, assumptions) that could flip the conclusions if handled differently.”
- Business strategies/plans: “Pinpoint the single biggest unstated assumption this plan hinges on.”
- Meeting notes/transcripts: “What decision got implicitly made but was never actually confirmed out loud?”
- News articles/industry reports: “What narrative is the writer building here, and what facts or angles might poke holes in it?”
A few pro tips to make it shine
- Always paste the full text (or upload the PDF). Links work okay, but Claude performs best with the complete content right there.
- Don’t sneak in “and give me a quick summary too”—it drags the model back toward safe, surface-level mode. Keep insight and summary as separate asks.
- After the first output, follow up! “Expand on tension #1” or “How would you test insight #3?” turns good analysis into great.
- Test it on something you’ve already read. The “aha” moment when Claude spots something you completely missed is the best way to see why this beats plain summarizing.
The bottom line
“Summarize” asks the AI to give you less of the same thing. This prompt asks it to think harder, spot what you missed, and hand you something genuinely useful.
Once you try it a few times, regular summaries start feeling flat. The real win with AI isn’t getting shorter text—it’s getting a smarter perspective you wouldn’t have found on your own. Give it a shot; I bet you’ll never go back.