MaxAI
A Chrome extension that rewrites, summarises, translates and drafts replies to whatever's on your screen — email, a webpage, a social post — without switching tabs.
What you'd use it for
Rewriting a reply, summarising a long page or PDF, or translating a webpage without leaving the tab you're already in.
- Summarise a long webpage or YouTube video into a few bullet points without opening a new tab
- Draft or rewrite an email reply directly inside Gmail
- Ask questions about an open PDF and get answers back in the sidebar
- Translate a whole webpage inline, showing the original and translation together
- Explain a highlighted passage of text with one click from the right-click menu
The verdict
MaxAI earns its place for the small, repeated writing tasks - email replies, LinkedIn comments, quick translations - that don't justify opening a separate chat tab. It's genuinely fast to start and free to trial, but the free tier's daily limits and smaller models show on anything beyond a straightforward rewrite, and the pricing rewards annual commitment more than it first appears to. It suits someone writing across many small contexts through the day rather than someone who needs sustained, deep work with one model.
What it costs
| Tier | Price | For | Includes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 USD/month | Light, occasional use of AI writing help across the web. | Daily-limited usage on basic models (GPT-4o-mini, Claude 3.5 Haiku, Gemini 1.5 Flash, Llama 3.2 90B), core reading, writing and search features. |
| Pro | $20 USD/month, monthly billing only | Someone using it daily who doesn't want to commit to annual billing. | 10,000 fast AI responses a month, 300 smart AI responses a month, full assistant feature set. |
| Elite | $19 USD/month billed yearly (limited-time offer; regularly $40 USD/month) | A daily user willing to commit annually for the lower rate. | Unlimited fast AI responses, 300 smart AI responses a month, unlimited image generation, web search with AI. |
Read from MaxAI's own pricing page on 25 Sep 2026. Vendors change prices without notice.
What you need to start
- A Chrome or Edge browser, or another Chromium-based browser
- A Google account or email address to sign in
- No credit card needed for the free tier
A few minutes to install the extension and sign in; the free tier's basic models are usable straight away, but the larger, smart models only arrive once you're on Pro or Elite.
Your first run Install the extension, sign in with Google or email, and the sidebar is live on the next page you open; summarising an article or drafting a reply to whatever's in front of you is a couple of minutes' work, with no separate account setup beyond signing in.
Where it breaks
All payments are stated as final and non-refundable per the vendor's own pricing page — worth knowing before committing to the annual Elite plan.
Chrome extension only (also works in Chromium browsers like Edge and Brave); it operates as an overlay on whatever page you're viewing rather than a separate app or tab.
First entry in this reference. There is no previous check to compare it against.
When not to use it
Not for anyone who wants one model they can rely on for longer-form or higher-stakes writing - the model mix varies by tier and the free plan's daily caps bite quickly. Also not for anyone unwilling to install a browser extension with access to the pages they visit, or anyone who wants a monthly option on the cheaper Elite rate - that price is an annual-only offer.
MaxAI’s whole premise is that switching to a chat tab to ask a question about the page you’re already looking at is a wasted step. It’s a Chrome extension that puts a rewrite, summarise, translate or reply button directly into Gmail, LinkedIn, Twitter, or any page you’re on, so the AI acts on your current context instead of you copying text back and forth.
That makes it closer to Wordtune or Grammarly in how you’d actually use it day to day than to a general chatbot like ChatGPT — you’re not opening a conversation, you’re clicking a button inline and getting a rewritten sentence or a drafted reply on the spot. Under the hood it routes to a mix of models (GPT, Claude, Gemini, Llama variants) depending on the tier, rather than being tied to one provider.
The pricing has an odd shape worth reading carefully: Pro at $20/month is monthly-only, while Elite is cheaper at $19/month but only at that price when billed annually — the regular Elite rate is $40/month, so the “cheaper” plan is a limited-time annual offer, not the standing price. Free is workable for occasional use but rate-limited to the smaller models, which show up in output quality on anything beyond a straightforward rewrite.
Where a business would choose this over just opening ChatGPT or Claude directly is volume of small, in-context edits — email replies, LinkedIn comments, quick translations — done throughout the day without the friction of switching windows each time.
Alternatives
Writing & editingAppsWordtune
Rewrites a sentence several ways so you can pick the tone you meant, and summarises long pages down to the parts worth reading.
Writing & editingAppsGrammarly
An AI writing assistant that lives inside the apps you already type in, correcting and rewriting as you go rather than waiting for you to paste something into a chat box.
Assistants & chatAppsChatGPT
OpenAI's assistant in a browser tab, a desktop app and a phone app, where you ask questions, draft text, and hand it files or spreadsheets to work through.
Assistants & chatModelClaude
Anthropic's AI assistant, available in a browser tab and — the part that matters here — as a desktop app that can read the files on your own machine and reach the systems you connect to it.
Get MaxAI
Buying the tool is not the hard part.
The ebook is about what to hand over, in what order, and how you find out when it goes wrong. One payment, no subscription.