A new Australian-founded AI platform has launched with a pitch to help marketers make sense of cultural shifts before they become mainstream.
Rumblings is an AI-powered decision engine designed to spot early shifts in human behaviour and translate them into strategic recommendations for marketers, agencies, communications teams and innovation leaders.
The platform was founded by We Scout founders Annabelle Jones and Lori Susko, alongside G+S founder and former News Corp journalist Jenny Ringland, and former Woolworths Group Head of Advanced Analytics & Data Science, Tom Crawford.
The founders said Rumblings was built in response to a growing problem for marketing teams: more information than ever, but less clarity on what matters.
A response to dashboard overload
Rumblings launches at a time when marketers are dealing with dashboards, trend reports, social listening tools and generative AI platforms.
The founders said the platform is designed to sit between cultural signals and commercial action, helping brands understand not just what is changing, but what they should do about it.
Annabelle Jones, Co-Founder of Rumblings, said the gap is not a lack of data, but a lack of clarity.
“Marketing teams today are drowning in signals and tools. Social listening tells you what has already happened. Trend forecasting tells you what might matter in 18 months. Generative AI helps you produce more content. But nobody is solving the gap between seeing a cultural shift emerge and knowing what your business should actually do next and why.
“Think of it like your personal insights partner, someone incredibly well read, who’s already consumed everything, spots cultural shifts early, and tells you why they matter to your role and your brand,” says Jones.
How Rumblings works
Rumblings combines real-time cultural signals with brand intelligence, including audience behaviour, category dynamics, commercial goals, brand positioning and user psychographics.
The platform then generates tailored recommendations for decision-makers across marketing, strategy, communications, innovation and product teams.
According to the founders, the current market remains fragmented, with businesses using trend agencies, research teams, social listening platforms, consultants and generative AI tools separately.
Tom Crawford said Rumblings was created to connect those inputs into commercial recommendations.
“Right now, companies have trend agencies, internal research teams, social listening platforms, consultants and generative AI tools all operating separately. But very little exists to connect those dots into one clear commercial recommendation. That’s the opportunity we saw,” said Crawford.
More strategic partner than a reporting tool
Unlike traditional trend-forecasting or social-listening platforms, Rumblings has been designed to operate less like a reporting tool and more like a strategic collaboration partner.
The platform aims to help organisations pressure-test ideas, identify whitespace opportunities and understand where cultural shifts intersect with commercial relevance.
The founders said it has also been designed to push back against the “sea of sameness” emerging across marketing as AI adoption accelerates.
Jones said AI is already creating optimisation, but not always originality.
“A lot of AI is creating optimisation, but not originality, and that’s a real problem. You can already see the flattening effect happening across marketing, same aesthetics, same campaign structures, same language. We built Rumblings to help brands think more clearly, not more generically,” said Jones.
Brand context at the centre
Rather than recommending the same actions to every business, Rumblings interprets cultural signals through each brand’s context, positioning and permission to play.
Jones said the platform is designed to help brands understand what is relevant to them, rather than simply react to the same trend.
“Two brands could see the exact same cultural shift, and we see it as Rumblings’ role to filter what is important to the end user, and explain what they should do with it, and why. That’s intentional.
“The future isn’t brands using AI to copy each other faster. It’s brands using AI to better understand themselves, their audiences and where they can lead,” said Jones.
Taking aim at AI marketing growth
The launch comes as businesses increase investment in AI-powered marketing tools.
The release cited a PwC survey in which 88% of executives said they planned to increase AI-related budgets over the next 12 months, with agentic AI emerging as a major priority.
It also cited Grand View Research, which forecasts the AI marketing industry will grow to US$82 billion in annual revenue by 2030, representing a 25% compound annual growth rate from 2025.
The Rumblings founders said the next phase of AI adoption will be defined less by speed and automation, and more by decision-making quality and collaboration.
“The real competitive advantage won’t come from producing more content. It’ll come from knowing what matters early and having the evidence to support the confidence to act on it,” said Jones.
Rumblings currently has pilot conversations underway across brands, agencies and innovation teams.
A broader rollout is planned for later in 2026.
Top image: (L to R) Jenny Ringland, Annabelle Jones, Tom Crawford, and Lori Susko