In short. Select ELI5 in Kagi Summarize's Mode dropdown to request a simplified webpage summary.
Definition: Kagi Summarize's ELI5 mode produces a simplified, easy-to-understand summary of a webpage. It is selected from the Mode dropdown on Kagi's Summarize website after a webpage URL is entered.
Key facts
- As of 17 October 2026, Kagi's Summarize documentation lists ELI5 among three primary modes and describes it as a simplified, easy-to-understand summary.
- The same documentation says that the Summarize website accepts the URL of a web page, PDF, PPTX, MP3 or video for summarization.
- Kagi documents a Summarize button under individual search results; after processing, the page summary appears below the result.
- Kagi's Universal Summarizer API documentation describes an endpoint that accepts a document URL or passed text, with paragraph and bulleted-list output types.
How do you select ELI5 for a webpage?
Kagi's Summarize documentation describes a website where a webpage URL is entered for processing. The mode is then chosen from the Mode dropdown. ELI5 is the choice for a simplified explanation.
The documented workflow can be represented as follows:
Open Kagi Summarize
Enter a webpage URL
Mode: ELI5
The source describes ELI5 as one of three primary summarization modes. The other two are Summary and Bullet Points. ELI5 therefore identifies the requested style of explanation, while the URL identifies the page to process.
What other output choices does Kagi document?
Kagi's website documentation describes Summary as a mode with the choices Headline, Brief Summary, Digest, Medium and Long. Bullet Points produces a bullet point summary of the page or link. These are separate choices in the same mode control as ELI5.
The same documentation says that a summary can optionally be translated using Kagi Translate. Translation is therefore a language option alongside the mode selection. It does not change the documented description of ELI5 as a simplified summary.
Can the same task be started from search results?
Yes. Kagi documents a Summarize button under each individual search result. Once processing is complete, the individual page summary appears below that result. This provides a route to the page summary without first opening the standalone Summarize website.
Kagi also documents the !sum bang for quickly summarizing a page from a search or URL bar. The standalone documentation gives this example:
!sum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwLDrZmNIIA
The example points to Kagi's custom bangs video tutorial. The ELI5 description itself remains in the website's Mode dropdown documentation.
What changes when software calls the API?
Kagi's Universal Summarizer API documentation describes a summarization endpoint that receives a document by URL or using passed text. It lists summary as the default output type for paragraph prose and takeaway for a bulleted list of key points.
The API documentation separately describes summarization engines, including cecil as the default with a friendly, descriptive, fast summary. It also documents target_language: when a language is specified, Kagi adds an explicit translation step. The website's ELI5 label and the API's documented output controls are described in different sections of Kagi's documentation.
Related terms
- Kagi Universal Summarizer
- Can a page be summarized inside Kagi search results?
- Can Kagi Summarize read PDFs, slide decks, and audio links?
FAQ
Can ELI5 be combined with Bullet Points?
Kagi documents ELI5, Summary and Bullet Points as three primary modes selected from the Mode dropdown. The documentation does not state whether two modes can be combined.
Can the simplified summary be translated?
Yes. Kagi says that a summary can optionally be translated using Kagi Translate. The translation option is documented separately from the ELI5 mode.
Can a search result be summarized without opening the page first?
Yes. Kagi documents a Summarize button under an individual search result, followed by a summary displayed below that result.
Sources
Check how a page reads to answer engines. Open the GEO score analyzer