Truescope will enter Australian market on 1 October 2026, seven years after it was founded in Sydney by John Croll and Michael Bade. The Australian-founded service used by organisations across North America, Singapore, and New Zealand launches at home for first time as fully integrated AI media intelligence service.
Australian communications teams are under pressure from two directions at once. Boards want to know what earned media is worth, and reputation risk now moves faster than monthly report. Truescope brings both into single, fully integrated AI platform, replacing legacy tools bought on multi-year terms, manual clipping, and general-purpose AI never built for media.
Decision to launch locally followed conversations with more than 30 communications, PR and public affairs leaders across Australian government, corporate, and agency teams. Two themes came back consistently: frustration with multi-year contract lock-ins, and with platforms customers felt had stopped innovating. Many said they were open to new provider doing something different.
"Australian comms teams have been locked into multi-year contracts long after product stopped improving. We are launching with smarter, fully integrated AI platform, 12-month maximum term and no auto-renewal, because if we are not earning it every year we do not deserve to keep it," said John Croll, CEO and co-founder of Truescope.
John Croll and Michael Bade built Media Monitors into Isentia, leading it through private equity ownership and ASX listing before leaving in 2018. They founded Truescope in 2019 and have since built operations in North America, Singapore, and New Zealand, with development and leadership team based in Australia.
As part of offering, in June 2026 Truescope launched Truescope AI, which runs two agents across platform rather than alongside it. Truescope Assistant answers questions about what happened in coverage. Truescope Analyst explains what it means, with citations on every output so numbers can be defended when they reach executive team.
"We decided early that we weren't going to bolt AI onto legacy platform, because it doesn't work. Every layer of Truescope has been built over last few years to be AI-first; how we ingest media, how we structure it, how our agents reason over it," said Michael Bade, CTO and co-founder of Truescope. "Hard part was never model. It was years of work getting data underneath it right, so when comms director asks why coverage moved, answer comes back with citations they can defend."
About Truescope
Truescope is an Australian-owned media intelligence service built by PR & comms professionals. Founded in Australia in 2019, Truescope monitors broadcast, print, digital and social media for government, corporate and agency clients across Australia, North America, Singapore, and New Zealand, and turns that coverage into analysis teams can take to their boards.
