A Young British Man Invented a ChatGPT Precursor in 2011. He Became a Millionaire and Vanished

In an interview with one of the many media outlets eager to share his story, a very young Nick D’Aloisio said, “I was revising for a history exam and using Google, clicking in and out of search results, and it seemed quite inefficient.” He criticized Google for providing mixed and poorly organized information, rendering it largely useless and time-wasting.

Years later, there’s a broader variety of more or less effective alternatives. Some people use Perplexity and Claude, while others prefer alternative search engines like DuckDuckGo. Some users continue using Google but skip the first page of results. Interestingly, when OpenAI was just a concept in Sam Altman’s mind, D’Aloisio proposed something truly revolutionary.

An App Ahead of Its Time

Sometimes, the history of technology conceals valuable innovations that have been forgotten. This is the story of an app that was once widely discussed but faded away just as it seemed poised to transform the landscape. In 2011, many iPhone users downloaded the Trimit app, which promised to summarize any text in seconds. At just 16 years old, D’Aloisio achieved what many developers aspire to: having one of the world’s major tech companies purchase his idea for millions of dollars.

In 2011, the App Store was still uncharted territory. Trimit was unlike any other app. It could summarize articles, emails, and blog posts in just a few seconds. Users could simply copy the text, paste it into the app, and select the desired summary length. You could choose between 140, 500, and 1,000 characters. D’Aloisio’s powerful yet simple idea aimed to save readers time. He wanted to automate the comprehension of large amounts of information.

The inspiration for Trimit began with a quote by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. “I was very obsessed with Steve Jobs at that point. The [original] app was Steve Jobs qyotes, but it didn’t get accepted,” D’Aloisio explained.

Trimit operated with a rudimentary semantic engine that D’Aloisio had programmed himself. Today, many apps can summarize, translate, and rewrite text, but in 2011, these capabilities seemed something out of science fiction.

The app featured a minimalist design tailored for the iPhone 4, and its interface was notably user-friendly. Trimit quickly climbed to the top 10 of the App Store in the United Kingdom. D’Aloisio attracted investments from Silicon Valley and celebrities, including artist Yoko Ono, actor Ashton Kutcher, and comedian Stephen Fry. Even Li Ka-Shing, one of the world’s richest people, was interested.

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From Trimit to Summly: A New Beginning

Shortly after launching Trimit, D’Aloisio redesigned the app from scratch. It resulted in the creation of Summly. The new app maintained the same core idea but featured a more polished interface and an improved summarization algorithm. It used natural language processing to identify key concepts in any text and condense them into coherent paragraphs. Summly achieved immediate success.

The app was featured in media outlets such as Forbes, Wired, and the Wall Street Journal. D’Aloisio also appeared on TV shows and gave TED talks. At just 17, this young British student had already attracted millions in investments and accumulated millions of downloads for his app.

In March 2013, Yahoo! acquired Summly for $30 million. Then-CEO Marissa Mayer recognized its potential and aimed to transform the company into a mobile and content leader. Summly began summarizing information into key units, including maps, infographics, quotes, and validated media excerpts.

The technology behind Summly was integrated into Yahoo!’s news app, and D’Aloisio began working for Yahoo! in San Francisco as a product manager. He continued his studies part-time.

An Unexpected End to a Brilliant Story

Summly ultimately ceased to exist on its own, but its underlying technology was integrated into the Yahoo! ecosystem for several years. D’Aloisio went on to study Philosophy and Computer Science at the University of Oxford. He also created other startups, like Sphere Knowledge, which Twitter acquired in 2021.

Today, as you use automated summaries, you often overlook the contributions of earlier applications like Trimit. These early pioneers played a significant role in their development. Remarkably, one of them was created by a 17-year-old using an iPhone 4.

A solid algorithm combined with a great idea can shape an era.

Image | Adam Tinworth

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