Riverside review: AI agents, pricing, limits and privacy

This review is built from what could be checked on November 3, 2026: Riverside's own site, pricing page, feature pages, release notes, terms, privacy policy and sub-processor list; its app store listings and the most recent US App Store reviews; reporting by Podnews, Podcast News Daily, TechCrunch and Calcalist; a third-party test of the new agents published by The Rundown; columns by two TechCrunch writers who use Riverside; user comments on Hacker News; and the alternatives' own pricing pages. Each piece of evidence says who produced it, and the numbers Riverside gives about itself are labelled as its own.

What Riverside is

Riverside is a podcast and video studio that runs in the browser, made by RiversideFM, Inc., which brothers Nadav Keyson (CEO) and Gideon Keyson launched in 2020 (Riverside). Its core idea is local recording: instead of keeping what a video call sends over the internet, Riverside records each participant on their own computer or phone in up to 4K video and 48 kHz WAV audio and uploads the files while the session runs. A guest's bad connection can make the conversation stutter, but the tracks you download stay sharp (Riverside FAQ).

Around that recorder Riverside has built an editor in which you cut video by deleting words in the transcript, AI tools that remove filler words and silences or fix eye contact, Magic Clips for short social videos, podcast hosting, live streaming and webinars. In May 2026 the company dropped the ".fm" from its name and moved to riverside.com, with its CEO saying the old name "had become too small" (Podcast News Daily). It raised a $30 million Series C in December 2024, led by Zeev Ventures, for $80 million in total (TechCrunch, Calcalist). In its launch release for the agents, Riverside says more than 40 million sessions have been recorded on it and names Spotify, NBC and The New York Times as customers (press release).

What changed in autumn 2026

Riverside shipped quickly in the weeks before this review, per its release notes:

• September 7: AI Twin, which builds an avatar from one of your recordings and generates new video from a script (AI credits, Pro and up).
• September 17: image and video generation inside the editor with outside AI models, for B-roll, guest cards and transitions, priced in AI credits.
• September 27: Safari 18.2 or later on macOS joined Chrome and Edge as a supported browser (Riverside).
• October 15: live English captions for webinars and streams, and motion graphics generated from a prompt.
• October 26: Riverside Agents, the news that put Riverside back in the headlines.
• October 28: Magic Clips can now be made from an edited version instead of the raw recording.

Riverside Agents: what the four agents do

Riverside bills the agents as the first AI production team built only for video. CEO Nadav Keyson's launch post of October 26, 2026 and the company's press release describe four roles:

• Producer: preps the session before you record (interview questions, talking points, scenes, layouts and branding) and supports you while you record.
• Editor: builds an editing plan for the full episode, walks you through it and applies the changes you approve, from pacing and audio clean-up to layouts, captions, B-roll and motion graphics.
• Clipper: finds the moments worth sharing and turns them into finished short clips.
• Marketer: writes captions and show notes, creates thumbnails and publishes or schedules episodes and clips once you approve.

The agents start work as soon as a recording uploads, pass work to each other and keep a memory of your preferences. They run on the web and in the iOS app, where they have their own tab (Riverside); the Android listing, updated October 29, does not mention the four agents. Podnews reported the launch the next day as a virtual production team for creators (Podnews).

On price, the agents page says the agents are on every Riverside plan with a 14-day trial, that what they can do depends on your plan, and that features which spend AI credits, such as video enhancement, still spend them when an agent applies them. Riverside says its specialised models let you finish full episodes "without hitting your AI usage limit halfway through", but publishes no limit for the agents; a GTM Power-Ups newsletter noted on October 27 that the pricing page does not name the four agents at all (GTM Power-Ups).

The only outside test found by November 3 is a guide by The Rundown, published the day after launch. Working on an openly licensed interview, the Clipper suggested two complete excerpts and the Editor and Marketer produced clip drafts and posts, but the guide reports that "agent handoff and automatic layout changes were unreliable" and recommends asking the Editor directly and setting layouts by hand (The Rundown). Before the agents, Riverside's AI ran through the Co-Creator, a chat-based editing and repurposing assistant inside the editor (Riverside), and through an MCP server that lets Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor search your transcripts, cut clips and schedule posts, on Grow and above (Riverside MCP).

AI voice, translation and avatars

Riverside's voice features work on the people in your recording. VideoDub lets you retype a line in the transcript and regenerates it in the speaker's own voice, lip-synced, so a wrong name or figure can be fixed without re-recording (Riverside FAQ). AI Translation dubs a video into 30+ languages in each speaker's cloned voice, with optional lip-sync, for up to 4 speakers and videos under 60 minutes; Riverside's translation FAQ says a minute of video takes about 20 minutes to process and captions stay in the spoken language (Riverside). The same FAQ calls the feature exclusive to Business plans, while the pricing table lists it as an AI-credit feature on every paid plan, so confirm access before buying for it. AI Twin goes further and generates new video of you from a script (Riverside). Using any of these on someone else's voice or face requires that person's consent through Riverside's in-app process, as the privacy section below explains.

Plans, prices and the limits that bite

From the pricing page, read November 3, 2026:

The yearly prices were not the same for everyone. In most fresh browser sessions on November 3, 2026 the yearly view showed Pro at $24 and Grow at $34 a month; in another it showed $29 and $36, as in the screenshot on this page. The page's own FAQ still says monthly Pro "drops from $29 to $24", although the monthly card says $35. Whatever you are shown, check the total at checkout.

The pricing page no longer shows a free plan. It offers a 14-day trial, while Riverside's FAQ says you can sign up free without a card and its mobile page describes a free plan that records in 720p. The trial converts to a full-price subscription unless you cancel before it ends (terms).

The word "unlimited" covers recording hours and transcription, not everything:

• Track downloads: the separate audio and video files per person, the reason to record in Riverside, are capped at 15, 20 or 25 hours a month on Pro, Grow and Webinar. Past the cap you wait for the next billing cycle or upgrade.
• AI credits: translation, AI B-roll, animated clips, smooth cuts, AI Twin and image or video generation spend credits. Pro, Grow and Webinar start with 2,000 and Business with 12,000; the pricing page does not say what more cost.
• Video settings: below Business, recordings are 24 fps and the mobile apps record up to 1080p.
• Seats: Pro, Grow and Webinar include one seat; one extra editor is a paid add-on, and collaborative editing is Business only.

What public tests and users report

• The Rundown, October 27, 2026. The only third-party test of the agents found: two suggested excerpts to check against the source, and unreliable handoffs and automatic layouts (The Rundown).
• TechCrunch, Brian Heater, August 2023. After moving his show from Zencastr, he called Riverside "the best remote recording software I've used thus far", but did his editing elsewhere (TechCrunch). The editor has changed a great deal since.
• TechCrunch, Amanda Silberling, December 2025. Riverside's AI Rewind recap was fun to share, she wrote, but showed how many AI features add little; AI can cut "um"s and dead air but not make editorial calls (TechCrunch).
• App Store reviews, 2026. The iPhone app holds 4.7 stars from 20,325 ratings (Apple), but recent written reviews are harsher. Of the 84 written US reviews posted in 2026 that Apple's public feed showed on November 3, 40 gave one star and 31 gave five (App Store reviews). The complaints repeat: crashes and failed exports; the summer 2026 rebuild that replaced direct transcript editing on the phone with editing by prompt through the Co-Creator (Riverside); no recording without internet; and six reviews describing charges after cancelling or trouble cancelling.
• Google Play. The Android app has 4.6 stars from 7.86K reviews and more than 500,000 downloads (Google Play); a review of August 29, 2026 describes more than ten crashes in a day and edits jumping back to the start.
• Browsers. A Hacker News user complained in July 2025 that Riverside worked only in Chrome or Edge (Hacker News); Safari support arrived in September 2026, and Firefox is still not on the list of compatible browsers (Riverside).
• Competitors. OpusClip says it produces more clips per hour than Magic Clips, in a comparison table dated July 2024 with no method (OpusClip). Treat it as a vendor claim.

Independent benchmarks of Riverside's transcription or clip quality are scarce. Its 99% transcription accuracy figure is its own (Riverside), and its terms forbid using the platform for benchmarking or other competitive purposes.

Privacy, AI training and content rules

Riverside's terms, updated October 5, 2026, give it a licence to your recordings, voice, transcripts and branding for running the service and for "training, testing, developing, and improving Riverside's artificial intelligence and machine learning models". A separate clause says it may use the prompts you type and the outputs you get to train its models, while the third-party AI companies it uses may not. The privacy policy, revised June 15, 2026, makes Riverside an independent controller of that content and exempts only Business customers who opted out of AI training in a written agreement. Riverside's FAQ, by contrast, tells visitors that it does not own or use your content in any way.

Other points from the same documents:

• Where data goes. Riverside and its providers store and process data in the US, Canada, the EU, the UK, Israel, Mexico, Argentina, the Philippines and elsewhere. Its sub-processor list names AWS, Google Cloud and MongoDB for infrastructure, Auphonic for audio, and OpenAI, ElevenLabs, Hedra, Pika, HeyGen and Fal.ai for AI services, without saying which feature uses which. Customer support is contracted to a company in the Philippines.
• Voice and face data. Riverside says it uses the voice and face data behind clones and avatars only for the feature you request, keeps it only as long as that feature needs and then destroys it.
• Synthetic media. Before cloning anyone's voice or likeness you must complete an in-app consent process for that person, and Riverside marks the output as AI-generated in a machine-readable way.
• Security. Riverside says it is SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certified (Riverside for Business); its pricing page lists that compliance, SSO and security reviews as Business features.

Billing, cancellation and refunds

The terms set out three rules that catch people out. A subscription renews for the same period unless you cancel at least 30 days before it ends. Fees are non-refundable except under a separate refund policy kept in Riverside's help center. And subscriptions bought through Apple's or Google's stores are final sales handled by those stores. If an annual payment fails, Riverside may switch you to twelve monthly instalments of the annual fee. Price rises need 30 days' notice, with a prorated refund if you cancel before they take effect.

The App Store complaints line up with these rules: in 2026, users describe paying after a cancellation they believed went through, finding no way to cancel in the app, and being offered free months while cancelling and then charged anyway.

Who should not use Riverside

• Anyone who cannot let a vendor train AI on their recordings and is not buying the Business plan.
• People who need to record without an internet connection or in Firefox.
• Podcasters who download more than 15 to 25 hours of separate tracks a month and do not want Business.
• Creators who shoot at 30 fps or need 4K from the phone app without Business.
• Buyers who want a long-term free plan, a fixed public price or easy refunds.
• Teams that edit mainly on phones, given the 2026 App Store complaints.

Alternatives and when they fit better

Prices from each product's own page, checked November 3, 2026:

For transcripts of meetings rather than produced shows, a dedicated note-taker fits better than Riverside; our Otter.ai alternatives list compares them. Riverside's case against all of these is breadth: high-quality remote recording, editing, clips, hosting, streaming, webinars and now agents in one place. If you want only one of those jobs, or you need control over AI training without an enterprise contract, one of the tools above is the better buy.