Key Points
- PMI is using AI-generated audience personas to test messaging and understand how different audiences may respond.
- The company is placing greater emphasis on its corporate website and other owned channels as large language models increasingly access publicly available information.
- Gilchrist said corporate communications are moving beyond traditional search engine optimization toward what she called “generative engine optimization.”
- PMI is increasingly using internal business metrics externally to help explain the scale of its transition from cigarettes to smoke-free products.
- Gilchrist became PMI’s Chief Global Communications Officer in January 2026 after previously leading communications and strategic and scientific communications functions.
2Firsts
August 26, 2026
Artificial intelligence is changing how companies understand audiences, manage their own information and communicate business transformation, Philip Morris International (PMI) Chief Global Communications Officer Moira Gilchrist said in an interview published by Business Insider on August 6, 2026.
PMI is already using AI to create simulated audience personas for message testing while placing greater emphasis on owned channels, including its corporate website, as large language models increasingly become an entry point for information about companies.
For PMI, which is seeking to transition its business away from cigarettes toward smoke-free products, Gilchrist’s comments point to a broader question beyond the adoption of individual AI tools: how a company ensures that information about its business, products and transformation is accurately found and understood in an AI-mediated information environment.
PMI Uses AI Personas to Test Its Messaging
Gilchrist described herself as an AI “enthusiast” and an early adopter, saying she uses AI tools extensively.
From a communications perspective, PMI has developed what she described as artificial audience replicas, or personas, which allow the company to test different messages and assess how they may resonate with target audiences.
“Those personas are absolutely fascinating,” Gilchrist said. “The feedback that we get really helps us to improve how we're communicating.”
The approach allows PMI to experiment with messaging before communicating with real-world audiences and to use AI as an additional tool for understanding potential reactions.
Corporate Websites Gain Strategic Value in the AI Era
Gilchrist said PMI’s corporate website has become a more important communications asset because large language models are accessing the information published there.
“Our corporate website has become an important vehicle for us to set the record straight because large language models are accessing the information that is on there,” she said.
Historically, corporate websites were more likely to be visited directly by journalists, investors or people deliberately seeking company information, rather than by the general public.
Generative AI changes that path.
When users ask AI systems about a company, its products or its strategy, large language models may draw on information published through corporate websites and other public sources before synthesizing an answer.
Gilchrist said this has led PMI to place greater emphasis on owned channels as strategic communications assets.
The company’s website contains information about its transformation, its progress and the products it has developed and commercialized across markets, she said.
Rather than simply allocating more resources to the website, PMI is taking a more deliberate approach to how information is structured so that large language models can find and use it effectively.
From SEO to Generative Engine Optimization
Gilchrist also argued that the traditional logic of search engine optimization is shifting as generative AI changes how people access information.
“The days of search engine optimization are over — now it's all about generative engine optimization,” she said.
Traditional SEO focuses largely on how content is discovered and ranked by search engines. In a generative AI environment, companies increasingly need to consider whether large language models can identify relevant corporate information and accurately surface it when users ask questions.
Gilchrist described this as an emerging discipline that companies are still learning.
For PMI, the goal is to make sure LLMs can access the depth of information available through its owned channels and use that material when people seek information about the company.
Internal Metrics Help PMI Explain Its Smoke-Free Transition
Gilchrist also discussed how PMI communicates the scale of its business transformation.
She said the company realized several years ago that it needed to make a stronger effort to help outside audiences understand how far the transformation had already progressed.
PMI consequently began using some metrics externally that had previously been used primarily for internal purposes.
Those include measures showing the growing contribution of smoke-free products to the company’s business.
“We realized a couple of years ago that we had to make a better effort to help the world understand the magnitude of the transformation we've already undergone,” Gilchrist said.
Using operating and financial metrics allows the company to demonstrate the extent of its transformation with measurable data rather than relying solely on broader corporate messaging.
Gilchrist also acknowledged that PMI still has “a long way to go.”
AI Changes How PMI’s Transformation Is Understood
The AI applications discussed in the Business Insider interview primarily concern corporate communications rather than product research, manufacturing or commercial decision-making.
The significance of Gilchrist’s comments therefore lies in how AI is changing the relationship between companies and the audiences seeking information about them.
PMI is using AI on one side of that relationship to simulate audiences and test messages. On the other, the rise of large language models is prompting the company to rethink the value of its website, first-party data and owned content.
That issue has particular relevance for PMI because the company is attempting to shift its business identity from its historical reliance on combustible cigarettes toward smoke-free products.
Communicating that transformation to consumers, investors, regulators and other stakeholders has become an important component of the company’s external positioning.
The rise of AI adds another layer: companies must increasingly consider not only whether audiences see the information they publish, but also how AI systems read, interpret and subsequently present that information to users.
Gilchrist’s Background Spans Science and Corporate Communications
Gilchrist was appointed PMI’s Chief Global Communications Officer in January 2026 after serving as Chief Communications Officer since January 2024. She previously served as Vice President of Strategic and Scientific Communications, a role she took on in 2018.
Since joining PMI in 2006, she has held roles including leading the company’s Reduced-Risk Products Corporate Affairs team and working in scientific engagement within research and development.
Before joining PMI, Gilchrist spent more than a decade in the pharmaceutical sector and has an academic background in pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences.
Her career has therefore spanned scientific, regulatory and corporate communications as PMI has developed and commercialized smoke-free products.
The Business Insider interview indicates that, as PMI continues its smoke-free transition, its communications strategy is also adapting to the rise of generative AI — from artificial audience testing and owned-channel strategy to the use of business data to explain corporate transformation.
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Cover Image Source: Business Insider / PMI
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