Brainwaves launches AI platform to speed up marketing strategy
Brainwaves, a new AI platform built for marketing and creative teams, launched today with a focus on a specific problem: brands can produce content faster than ever, but deciding what to say and why remains slow.
The Melbourne and Singapore-based company uses more than 10 specialist AI agents working in parallel to analyze audience data, cultural signals, competitive positioning and research. The system connects a brand's own information-positioning statements, customer research, past strategies-to each strategic task rather than generating generic recommendations.
Jamie Brownlee, the company's chief executive, said the platform treats strategy as a continuous process rather than a one-off briefing stage. "Faster execution without sharper direction just means more spend on ineffective marketing," Brownlee said.
The problem with generic AI
Marketing teams already use general-purpose AI tools for drafting and research. Brainwaves argues these systems often produce similar recommendations regardless of business context, a problem described in Harvard Business Review research as "strategy trendslop."
Ben Crawford, the company's chief creative officer, said generic large language models can generate work that appears strategic without grounding it in a brand's specific information. "Brands are sitting on data and intelligence about their category, their customers, and themselves, but it rarely reaches the people doing the day-to-day work," Crawford said.
The platform is designed to fit into existing workflows and tools rather than replace them. Tom McKenzie, the company's chief technology officer, described it as "the alternative to dropping prompts into chat apps."
Early results and market scope
Pilot projects with early users reduced time-to-brief by up to 70%, according to the company. More than 200 agency strategists across 20 countries are already using the platform.
Omnicom Malaysia tested the system on local market work. The platform processed Malaysian English, Malay and Mandarin, surfacing cultural details like "buka rumah" (open house during Raya) and "bai nian" (house visiting during Chinese New Year) rather than generic festive moments.
Brainwaves is targeting a global strategy market worth more than $100 billion. The company has received angel investment from marketing executives and entrepreneurs.
The three founders bring combined experience in marketing, agency work and technology. Brownlee previously served as chief marketing officer at Euronews, McKenzie was a founding engineer at Mr Yum, and Crawford held senior agency leadership roles across Asia-Pacific.
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