Burson Buys Predictive PR Intelligence Partner Limbik

WPP-owned global communications agency Burson has acquired Limbik Inc., the partner company with which it developed its Decipher predictive intelligence platform.

Founded by veterans of Madison Avenue, the US government, academia and venture-backed technology companies, Limbik operates across the US, Canada and the EU, and specializes in predictive modeling and synthetic audience simulation.

Burson was created two and a half years ago when WPP merged its two global PR firms, Hill & Knowlton and BCW. The company has been working with Limbik since 2024, developing the proprietary Decipher solution. Decipher forecasts how communications will resonate with audiences - including virality and believability - in more than 60 markets globally, and sits within a broader product suite that also includes Sonar, Reputation Capital and The Fount.

The acquisition brings Limbik's technology, engineering team and AI research team fully in-house, allowing Burson to accelerate product integration and development across the suite, and help the broader WPP group to make full use of Decipher.

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 rest of the Limbik team joins with them.

"Every firm in the industry is guessing how audiences will react,' says Schwitzky. 'We built the cognitive framework that knows.'

Corey duBrowa (pictured), CEO of Burson, comments: 'Decipher has become foundational to how we help clients build, protect and prove the value of their reputation in real time. 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.'

Web site: www.bursonglobal.com .