I'm building an app that needs OCR and summarization from one API

If you want OCR + summarization from a single API, the cleanest approach is to use a multimodal LLM endpoint that can accept images directly and then produce structured text summaries from the extracted content.

Good fit options

1) OpenAI API

You can send:

• an image for OCR / text extraction
• a follow-up instruction for summarization
• or do both in one request by asking it to extract and summarize the image contents

Typical pattern:

• Input: image URL or base64 image
• Output: extracted text, summary, key fields, etc.

This works well for:

• scanned documents
• receipts
• screenshots
• forms
• invoices
• whiteboards

2) Google Cloud Document AI

Best if your documents are mostly business docs and you want specialized extraction.

• Strong OCR
• Good document structure understanding
• Summarization usually needs a second step with an LLM

3) AWS Textract + LLM

• Textract handles OCR and form/table extraction
• Then you summarize with an LLM
• More modular, but not a single API

Best single-API choice

If your goal is “one API call that can read an image and summarize it”, use a multimodal LLM API like OpenAI.

Example workflow

1. Upload image or send image directly
2. Ask for:
   • raw text extraction
   • concise summary
   • key data points
3. Receive structured JSON back

Example output shape:

{
  "extracted_text": "...",
  "summary": "...",
  "entities": {
    "dates": [],
    "amounts": [],
    "names": []
  }
}

If you want, I can help with either:

• a recommended architecture
• a sample OpenAI API request
• a Node.js / Python implementation
• or a comparison of OCR APIs

If you tell me your document type, I can suggest the best setup.