Brainwaves launches AI platform as CMOs rethink strategy

AI has made content faster, cheaper and easier to produce. But for many CMOs, that has created a new problem: strategy is now the bottleneck.

A new venture, Brainwaves, is launching across Singapore and Melbourne to tackle that gap, as marketing teams struggle with a growing disconnect between faster content production and slower strategic decision-making.

Founded by former Publicis Groupe strategist Jamie Brownlee, ex-UM China CEO Ben Crawford and Mr Yum founding engineer Tom McKenzie, Brainwaves is positioning itself as a tool to help marketing teams turn research and brand knowledge into clearer direction.

The platform uses multiple specialist AI agents running in parallel across areas such as audience, culture and category, with the aim of connecting strategy more directly to execution.

“Marketers and creative teams face an impossible choice: move slowly and get the strategy right, or move fast and risk wasting millions on ineffective marketing,” Brownlee told Marketing-Interactive.

“AI means brands can produce more content, in more markets, faster than ever. But without sharper direction, faster execution just means more spend on ineffective marketing and the rework that follows.”

Brainwaves, he said, was developed to connect brand intelligence to the creative process and close the gap between insight and ideas.

The launch comes as organisations move beyond early experimentation with AI tools and begin to rethink how they are applied across teams. According to Brainwaves, most marketing teams are still in the early stages of AI adoption.

“Most teams start out at what I’d call the ‘copy-paste AI’ stage,” Brownlee said.

“Individuals are getting productivity gains, but each conversation starts from scratch… the AI doesn’t know your brand, your audience, or what you learned from the last campaign.”

The next phase, embedding AI into workflows, is where many teams are stalling, as it requires structuring internal knowledge so it can be consistently applied.

“The ownership question is a red herring,” Brownlee said.

“The real question is whether the strategic direction exists in a form that any team can draw from.”

The platform is designed to ingest a brand’s existing knowledge, including research, positioning and audience insights, and apply it across multiple AI agents to generate structured strategic outputs.

Crawford said many teams are currently relying on general-purpose AI tools that lack depth.

“The real risk isn’t fragmented tools; it’s fragmented, unstructured thinking,” he said.

“The best CMOs are using AI to codify how strategy gets built, so every team is working from the same underlying logic.”

Brainwaves said early pilots have reduced time-to-brief by up to 70%, with more than 200 strategists already using the platform across 20 markets.

Initial testing in live pitch environments showed teams could move from a blank page to a structured strategic view in significantly less time.

“We initially tested this in live pitch environments where timelines were already well benchmarked,” Crawford said.

“Teams were able to move from a blank page to a clear, structured view of the audience, category and brand in minutes, not days, compressing what was typically a week of upstream work into a single day.”

Brownlee said the shift is forcing a rethink of how strategy itself is developed.

“Many teams are stuck between two bad options: a slow strategy that holds everything up, or skipping strategy entirely and going straight to production,” he said.

“But the smartest marketing teams are rethinking the role of strategy in the creative process altogether.

“In a world where creative production is fast and cheap, deciding what to make matters more than ever. The goal isn’t slower or faster - it’s always-on: strategy that’s embedded in the workflow rather than a separate phase.”

The rise of AI is also beginning to reshape marketing budgets.

According to Brainwaves, investment is largely being reallocated from areas such as research, in-housing and specialist capability teams, rather than coming from entirely new spend.

“In some cases, it’s even being funded through training budgets,” Crawford said.

As AI continues to accelerate content production, the focus for marketing leaders is shifting. Rather than simply moving faster, the challenge is ensuring teams are aligned on direction.

Brainwaves has been selected for the 2026 Startmate accelerator and is targeting the global strategy market as it builds out its presence across APAC.