Beside

Beside gives a small local business a second phone number with an AI receptionist behind it. You pick a number in your own area code, so work and personal calls stop sharing one line, and the assistant answers around the clock when you cannot.

Every call and voicemail is transcribed automatically. Rather than scrolling back through a thread or guessing at keywords, you ask Beside for the detail — what price you quoted, which day you promised — and get the answer out of the transcript. After each call it writes a summary with suggested follow-up actions and calendar events, and a daily recap catches anything still waiting on you. Because it reads across conversations rather than one at a time, it also surfaces connections between clients and jobs that are easy to miss in a busy week.

Who it is for

It is built for local service businesses — salons, barbers, plumbers, electricians, contractors — where the owner is the receptionist, and a missed call is a lost job. Interface, Inc. reports 21,000+ paying businesses on the phone product at a 4.8-star App Store rating.

Platform and availability

The iOS app requires iOS 16 or later; Android and web access are also available. The app is free to download and the business phone service is paid.

Beside is currently expanding from a phone product into a broader platform the company calls an AI operating system for local business — bundling the AI receptionist with lead follow-up by text and email, a CRM, a website builder, Google Ads management, scheduling and booking, and reviews management. That expansion is on a waitlist launching in autumn 2026, and the company states pricing will be a fixed price rather than usage-based but has not yet published the numbers.