Book summary company getAbstract in Lucerne, Switzerland, which launched in 1999, has built, in its 24 years, a library of more than 25,000 text and audio summaries of business-relevant books, articles, podcasts, and video talks in seven languages. The company describes this as “microlearning” or “compressed learning” and has attracted more than 15 million readers. Ed Nawotka spoke with co-founder and CEO Thomas Bergen before the fair about the company’s evolution.
How many publishers supply books to getAbstract and who uses the service?
We have had more than 800 international publishing partners. More than one-third of the Fortune 500 use getAbstract as a trusted learning solution. Our top three countries customer-wise are the U.S., Germany, and the U.K.
How has the company evolved its product in recent years?
We’ve continuously built on the foundation of our summaries to create a customizable solution that helps organizations address their most pressing business problems with bite-sized, actionable knowledge and learning tools. getAbstract Actionables, our latest product, are 15-minute learning units designed to help working professionals apply expert knowledge immediately.
Our “Meeting in a Box” reflection guides prompt teams to engage with our content in a “book club” setting. Our insight platform, the getAbstract Journal, offers additional context to our summaries and discusses trending business topics in more depth. Additionally, we have expanded our offering of webinars and network forums where authors can share hands-on insights with an engaged business audience.
All this cannot be free. What are your pricing plans?
We have flexible pricing plans for companies of any size. Individual subscribers can access our service for $299 a year, and students can get limited access for free.
What developments do you foresee, now that A.I. is making book and content summaries automatically and quickly?
Artificial Intelligence stands as one of humankind’s most profound inventions, holding the potential to address and resolve many of humanity’s most complex challenges. However, a recurring concern among our audience, be it customers or learners, is the overwhelming surge of AI-generated content. The daunting task is to discern genuine insights from misinformation and distinguish high-caliber knowledge from the subpar.
AI may well help us make our search and summarization processes more efficient. However, it won’t replace us in our function as gatekeepers and curators of trusted business knowledge. We believe that the advent of AI has made the aspects of our business that focus on finding, certifying, rating, and compressing (with the help of AI and expert editors) all the more important.
Is there a way the company can compete?
As I said above, the certification will be more and more important. Our customers would like to be sure that a piece of content is authentic, relevant, truthful, crafted by knowledgeable experts, and cleared for copyright. Therefore, getAbstract will remain competitive not despite AI but because of it. Copyright infringement and fake knowledge, for example, are not things our customers have to worry about.
Does someone consuming a summary cannibalize sales to potential customers?
We help publishers and authors connect with a global audience that reaches well beyond their usual marketing channels. We also promote the books we select and summarize through media partnerships and our getAbstract International Book Award, which is among the world’s oldest, continuously presented nonfiction book awards. Since 2001, it has been awarded to 118 authors whose work has significantly impacted contemporary social, political, and economic understanding.
In 2021, Summit Research conducted an independent survey on our readers’ book-buying behavior, and the results far exceeded our expectations: getAbstract subscribers purchased nearly 20 books per year, twice the number of non-subscribers. Eighty-four percent of respondents said getAbstract helps them make better-informed book-purchasing decisions. So, instead of bypassing books for summaries, our service is our subscribers’ strongest book-purchasing motivator.
