Burson acquires cognitive AI company Limbik

Global communications agency Burson has announced it has acquired Limbik Inc., the cognitive-AI company behind Decipher, Burson's predictive intelligence platform that forecasts how communications will resonate with audiences operating in more than 60 markets globally. The acquisition reflects Burson's continued investment in AI capabilities that help clients navigate reputation, communications and stakeholder trust in an increasingly complex information environment.

Limbik and Burson co-developed Decipher’s proprietary IP over the past two years, giving Burson a first-mover position in AI-native audience intelligence within a broader product suite that also includes Sonar, Reputation Capital and The Fount. The acquisition brings Limbik's proprietary cognitive AI capabilities, engineering team and AI research team fully in-house, allowing Burson to accelerate product integration and development across its entire innovation suite. This enables the ability to capture the full value of the Decipher platform across the WPP network via WPP Open.

"Decipher has become foundational to how we help clients build, protect and prove the value of their reputation in real time," said Corey duBrowa, CEO of Burson. "Bringing Limbik's team and technology on board at Burson lets us build solutions faster for our clients and own our future technology roadmap. This work isn’t a separate service line item anymore. It's foundational to every piece of client work we do, and it's how we help clients lead, not just adapt, in the intelligence era. This move ensures faster answers, sharper judgment and a predictive, ‘see around corners’ edge we can put directly in our clients' hands, no matter where in the world we're working or what problem we're helping them solve."

Decipher forecasts how communications will resonate with audiences, predicting the virality and believability of messaging to determine impact before it reaches the market. The technology serves as the predictive engine behind Burson's AI-enabled ecosystem, powering the agency's work across GEO, Reputation Capital, Culture Up and influencer strategy.

Limbik co-founders Zach Schwitzky and Josh Levin will join Burson as Global Head of Innovation, AI Platforms and Products and Global Head of Innovation, Clients & Growth, respectively reporting to Global Chief Innovation Officer, Chad Latz. The broader Limbik team will join Burson’s Innovation team to build and expand AI advisory and product capability across the entire company.

"Every firm in the industry is guessing how audiences will react. We built the cognitive framework that knows," said Zach Schwitzky, co-founder and CEO of Limbik. "With Decipher, Burson didn’t just add a tool. It activated a model for how real audiences around the world respond to information. At Limbik, we set out to build the AI infrastructure that the world's most influential agency runs on and the intelligence behind how it shapes and protects reputation at scale. Burson understood that before anyone else, and this is what setting the standard looks like.” 

“With this acquisition, Burson continues building a standing innovation arm within our walls, designed to continuously generate, test and integrate new AI products across every practice, every geography and the entire communications and creative workflow," said duBrowa. "This is how we set the agenda for the industry - not by adapting to how AI changes communications but pioneering and proving what that change looks like.”