Riptidehq
San Francisco, US · Founded 2019 · 18 employees on LinkedIn · 1 known investors
Riptide is a San Francisco-based AI company building AI Customer Advocates that handle and resolve complex customer service issues by coordinating across systems, teams, and partners. It targets enterprise customer service operations with a product designed to represent the customer's needs at scale.
Also known as Ripley · Riptide
Founders & leadership
Riptidehq was founded in 2019 by Doug Marinaro.
Investors · 1
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Riptide develops Ripley, which the company positions as an "AI Customer Advocate" rather than an AI agent. The product maintains a single continuous conversation with a customer from first contact to resolution while coordinating the systems, internal teams, and external partners required to solve the issue behind the scenes. Riptide frames the product around three functions: engaging the customer as a continuous front line without scripts, menus, or transfers; orchestrating connected systems, people, and partners in real time, including identifying who to ask when information is missing; and owning the outcome by driving each issue to completion rather than handing it off.
The company contrasts its approach with conventional service automation built around routing, deflection, and escalation, and with "human in the loop" models where agents must review or rescue most interactions. Riptide instead describes a "human in the flow" model in which Ripley handles coordination and continuity and passes full context to human agents for exceptions, corner cases, and judgment-intensive work. Riptide states that Ripley's orchestration can deliver results without perfect data or complete system connectivity at the outset.
Riptide describes enterprise-grade security that is independently audited and certified, and cites two U.S. patents underpinning the product: No. 12,199,936 ("Multiparty Communication Using a Large Language Model Intermediary") and No. 12,101,362 ("Dynamic Provisioning for Multiparty Conversations Across Service Delivery Networks").
Traction
The company reports that Ripley is in production, handling 30,000 conversations a day, with 95% of cases resolved without direct human support, a 10x improvement in response times, a 4%+ CSAT increase, 3x concurrency, and under 90 days to ROI. A published case study describes AAA - The Auto Club Group using AI advocacy for roadside assistance, citing a 4% CSAT increase across 30,000 emergency roadside conversations a day, 95% of cases resolved without escalation to an agent, 10x response time improvement, 50% reduction in average handle time, and 20% agent retention improvement.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market
Market position
Riptide differentiates its "AI Customer Advocate" category from AI agents that automate individual interactions or tasks, arguing that its product coordinates full resolutions instead. The company cites industry pain points it aims to address, including that 53% of self-service interactions escalate to support, 74% of consumers say support is slow and inconvenient, and 60% say it is getting worse.
Riptide lists five capabilities it attributes only to Ripley: driving customer resolution rather than answers or discrete tasks; managing multiple behind-the-scenes conversations while presenting one customer engagement; keeping humans in the flow rather than in the loop; optimizing for trust and low customer effort rather than deflection; and operating across imperfect systems and organizational boundaries, including external partners and missing data.
Technology
Ripley is built on large language model-based multiparty communication and orchestration. The system acts as an intermediary across multiple conversation participants, dynamically provisioning conversations across service delivery networks, and connects to a customer's existing tools, systems, and other AI agents to retrieve information and take actions. Riptide holds two U.S. patents covering these mechanisms (Nos. 12,199,936 and 12,101,362) and states the platform is designed to work across fragmented systems, missing data, external partners, and human dependencies. Human agents remain available in the flow, receiving full context for exceptions.
Go-to-market
Riptide sells to enterprises through a direct, demo-led motion, with "Get a Demo" calls to action, an interactive simulator demo, technology explainers, and customer case studies on its website.
Riptide targets enterprise customer service and support operations in industries with complex, multi-party service journeys. Named use cases include field service coordination, insurance and claims support, hospitality guest support, utilities service support, telecom sign-up through service and billing, financial services from account opening through disputes and fraud, member benefits support, pharmacy patient support, and healthcare patient navigation.
Compiled by commissioned research from 1 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Timeline · 3
launches, deals, and filingsCase study describes AAA - The Auto Club Group using Riptide's AI advocacy across 30,000 emergency roadside conversations per day, with reported gains in CSAT, response time, average handle time, and agent retention.
Riptide cites U.S. Patent No. 12,101,362, "Dynamic Provisioning for Multiparty Conversations Across Service Delivery Networks," as underlying its Ripley product.
Riptide cites U.S. Patent No. 12,199,936, "Multiparty Communication Using a Large Language Model Intermediary," as underlying its Ripley product.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
▸Research sources · 1
primary sources listed
- Riptidehqriptidehq.com · web
1 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Riptidehq do?
- Riptide builds Ripley, an AI Customer Advocate that resolves customer service issues end to end without escalation.
- Who founded Riptidehq?
- Riptidehq was founded by Doug Marinaro in 2019.
- Who are Riptidehq's investors?
- Riptidehq's investors include Evolution VC Partners.
- Where is Riptidehq headquartered?
- Riptidehq is headquartered in San Francisco, US.