Philip Morris International is accelerating its investment in artificial intelligence

In July 2026, tobacco company Philip Morris International (PMI) announced the establishment of a "generative artificial intelligence factory" at its Portuguese subsidiary, Tabaqueira, in Albarraque. Presented as a global center of excellence, this facility is expected to employ up to one hundred specialists and serve all of the group's activities, from optimizing industrial processes to developing new AI-based applications. In parallel, the company's global communications director detailed, in an interview published in August 2026, how the group is reorienting its corporate communications to become more accessible to major language models, notably by using artificial audience "personas" and optimizing its corporate website for generative search engines.

These announcements come a few weeks after the STOP monitoring network issued a warning about the tobacco industry's use of artificial intelligence to influence public discourse on its products. They illustrate how tobacco companies can leverage these tools, both as an industrial tool and as an instrument for influencing the information available on tobacco and nicotine.

A generative AI "factory" installed at the group's Portuguese subsidiary

According to the Portuguese Agency for Investment and Foreign Trade (AICEP), PMI chose Portugal to establish its "GenAI Factory", housed in the Tabaqueira facilities in Albarraque[1]-[2]. The site is described as a global center of excellence responsible for developing and deploying generative artificial intelligence solutions for all of the group's operational units.

The announced uses cover the optimization of industrial processes, data analysis, automation of operations, and the creation of new AI-powered applications. This expansion builds on the group's long-standing presence in Portugal, where Tabaqueira also houses a technology center and a financial center. According to AICEP, 26 of Tabaqueira's employees now hold positions with global reach. The corporate communications accompanying the announcement highlight cooperation with Portuguese universities, research centers, and companies, as well as the training of highly qualified personnel, positioning the operation as a contribution to the national innovation ecosystem.

Corporate communication explicitly calibrated for language models

In an interview with Business Insider, published in August 2026[3], Moira Gilchrist, PMI's global communications director, described how the group's communications strategy has adapted to the rise of generative AI tools. She presented herself as an early and committed user of these technologies.

Two developments are highlighted. The first involves building artificial audience "personas," that is, simulated profiles used to test the resonance of messages before their dissemination—feedback presented as a way to improve the group's communication. The second concerns the company's institutional website: according to Moira Gilchrist, it has become «"an important vector for restoring the facts, because major language models access information.". The group states that it has shifted its efforts from optimization for traditional search engines to optimization for generative engines, structuring its content so that it is picked up by conversational systems.

This interview is part of the transformation narrative that the group has been deploying for several years around its so-called "smoke-free" products, which accounted for 43% of its net sales in the first quarter of 2026. This transformation narrative, widely documented by public health literature as a central element of the industry's repositioning strategy, constitutes precisely the message that these devices aim to make accessible to AI systems.

An ability to influence discourse already noted by public health experts

These announcements echo the alert published at the end of June 2026 by STOP[4], global tobacco industry monitoring network. This work documented manufacturers' use of artificial intelligence to gain public trust and influence online opinion, through both overt and covert means.

Two main mechanisms have been identified. The first is based on volume: by multiplying content favorable to its products on social networks and video platforms, the industry increases the likelihood that this content will be picked up by search engines and chatbots, which build their responses based on what is most prevalent online. The second relates to the age of the available material: industry-funded studies and advertorials broadcast over several decades remain accessible on the web and continue to feed the data on which these systems rely, without their origin necessarily being disclosed to the user.

STOP also highlighted the risk of coordinated or automated campaigns disrupting monitoring tools and public consultations, as well as the development of an AI model designed specifically for the sector.

The issue lies less in the tool itself than in the channel. By explicitly optimizing its corporate content for use by chatbots, a tobacco manufacturer seeks to position itself upstream of the responses delivered to users, including healthcare professionals, journalists, and public officials, without revealing the industrial origin of the message. Public health stakeholders point out that this risk has already been demonstrated in consultation processes. In June 2026, an investigation by Dutch public media revealed that Philip Morris International had made available an AI tool that generated approximately 22,500 of the 88,000 contributions to the European consultation on the revision of the tobacco control directives.[5]. In the United States, a study shows that 97 of the 246,808 comments sent to the FDA regarding the menthol ban were form letters, 46 of which contained content attributable to tobacco companies.[6]. This type of interposition is what Article 5.3 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control targets.

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[1] AICEP Portugal Global, Tabaqueira acolhe factory of IA generativa da Philip Morris, published on July 23, 2026, accessed on August 27, 2026.

[2] Christopher Graeme, Philip Morris chooses Portugal for Generative AI factory, Essential Business, published on August 26, 2026, accessed on the same day

[3] PMI's head of comms explains why AI has made corporate websites more important than ever, Business Insider, published August 6, 2026, accessed August 27, 2026

[4] STOP warns of the tobacco industry's use of artificial intelligence to influence the discourse on the subject., Tobacco-Free Generation, published June 30, 2026, accessed August 27, 2026

[5] Netherlands: Philip Morris's AI advertising campaign deemed illegal, Tobacco-Free Generation, published on August 18, 2026

[6] United States: The tobacco industry has overwhelmed the consultation on menthol., Tobacco-Free Generation, published on September 3, 2026