Key Points
- AI as Infrastructure: AI is moving beyond back-office automation and becoming part of how global tobacco companies manage recruitment and knowledge and support decision-making, while also increasing efficiency.
- Talent Strategy: JTI notes that the hardest profiles to attract are professionals with advanced digital skills and scientific expertise, making internal upskilling and initiatives such as its AI Academy and Copilot central to its workforce strategy.
- Internal Mobility: JTI’s tool “Talent Marketplace” leverages AI-powered matching to connect employees with internal opportunities based on skills, experience and aspirations, pointing to a more skills-based career growth.
- Human Accountability: JTI explicitly positions AI as a digital collaborative partner while keeping final decisions with employees.
- Industry Competition: As tobacco companies navigate industry evolution as new nicotine categories are developing, AI is emerging as a new capability race, impacting product development and organizational agility.
2Firsts
June 17, 2026
For global tobacco companies, artificial intelligence is no longer a back-office experiment. It is beginning to shape how they recruit, train employees, allocate internal talent, manage knowledge and processes.
The timing matters. International tobacco groups are already competing to grow in reduced-risk products and new nicotine categories, a journey that demands more scientific, digital and regulatory capability than the traditional cigarette business required. AI now adds another test: whether these companies can build faster, more adaptive organizations without losing human accountability.
Recent moves across the sector show the shift widening. Imperial Brands has announced a global strategic partnership with Capgemini focused on advanced analytics and AI-enabled transformation, while other major tobacco groups have been exploring AI applications in manufacturing automation, trade execution, internal knowledge systems and workforce training. Regulators are moving too, with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration expanding its use of AI to support scientific review and other regulatory workflows.
Recent AI-related initiatives by major international tobacco companies and regulators.｜ Source: 2Firsts.
To examine how this is playing out inside a major tobacco company, 2Firsts interviewed Japan Tobacco International (JTI). JTI’s written responses show a company trying to place AI not only in its technology stack, but in its talent system.
Competing for Talent in a Scrutinized Industry
(Ross Hennessy, Global Talent Management and DEI VP)
The talent question for tobacco and nicotine companies begins with a challenge: the industry remains under sustained public scrutiny and reputational pressure in many markets.
That matters because the next phase of competition in nicotine is increasingly dependent on capabilities that are also in high demand elsewhere – artificial intelligence, advanced digital skills, engineering, regulatory expertise and data-driven consumer insight.
JTI said it addresses the industry’s stigma directly when communicating with potential employees.
“We’re open about our business and we communicate transparently with all our audiences including potential employees,” the company said. “We address the industry’s stigma directly — providing all information they may need and sharing a consistent story about how JTI is evolving.”
The company pointed to its people-focused culture and said it has been certified as a Global Top Employer for 12 consecutive years across 50 countries and five regions: Africa, Asia, Europe, MENEAT and North America.
Beyond recognition, JTI highlights its inclusive culture as a key strength in attracting talent. The company emphasizes an environment where people can truly be themselves, work flexibly and collaborate across diverse backgrounds and perspectives. In a sector facing reputational challenges, this culture plays an important role in balancing perceptions and making the company a more attractive employer for potential candidates.
But JTI also acknowledged that the hardest profiles to attract are those in highest global demand, especially AI, advanced digital skills and scientific expertise.
At the same time, JTI focuses not only on competing for talent but also on developing it, investing in a working environment where employees can continuously grow, reskill and adapt as the industry evolves. The modernization of its People & Culture model, supported by digital solutions and AI, aims to drive this strategy and help employees stay at the forefront of their field. JTI said it is backing this with initiatives such as its AI Academy and by expanding access to tools including Microsoft Copilot, which it said has now been rolled out to more than 16,000 employees.
The emphasis on internal capability building is important. For nicotine companies, the challenge is not only to recruit from outside the sector, but to support growth and enhance the skill set of employees as technology changes the nature of work.
In this context, as AI makes certain tasks more standardized or automated, human qualities such as authenticity, collaboration and diverse thinking become increasingly important. This is the area where JTI aims to differentiate itself through its culture.
From AI Tools to Organizational Infrastructure
(Sergei Polianski, Agile, Strategy and Portfolio Governance VP)
JTI describes its AI strategy as having moved from early exploration to broader practical deployment.
The company said it has expanded the use of Microsoft Copilot, continued to enhance its capabilities, and adopted an “experiment and learn” approach: piloting solutions first, refining them through user feedback, and expanding them in phases only after value, compliance and inclusion are demonstrated.
One example is ChatJTI, which the company describes as a secure, employee-centric AI assistant. JTI said ChatJTI is evolving into a “one stop shop” that can provide guidance on policies and procedures while also supporting productivity tasks such as document summarization, meeting notes and feedback analysis.
JTI is also integrating AI into talent attraction workflows to help employees handle routine tasks, reducing repetition and focusing on more strategic work.
These examples put AI across several layers of JTI’s organization: workplace productivity, internal knowledge management, recruitment, talent development and decision support. For tobacco companies, that structure matters because they must continue operating large, regulated global businesses while building the scientific, digital and consumer capabilities required for new nicotine categories.
AI, in this context, becomes part of the operating system.
Toward a Skills-Driven Organization
(Sergei Polianski, Agile, Strategy and Portfolio Governance VP)
The most significant part of JTI’s response concerns people-related decision-making based on various sources of data and internal talent mobility.
Asked whether AI-driven tools could influence how people decisions are made inside the organization, JTI answered directly: “The short answer is ‘yes.’”
Since last year, JTI has been investing in an AI-powered platform that places skills at the center of talent management. By combining employee input, assessments and leveraging external benchmarks, the platform uses AI to build a comprehensive view of skills. This supports a range of processes , such as development planning, goal setting and learning recommendations.
JTI’s Talent Marketplace is one example. The company said the platform uses AI-powered matching to connect employees with opportunities based on their skills, experience and aspirations. It also helps project owners identify the right capabilities and build cross-functional teams.
That points to a shift toward a more skills-based model of internal mobility. Traditional corporate systems often rely on formal reporting lines, established networks and managerial visibility. AI-enabled matching could broaden access to opportunities by connecting internal talent with roles across functions and geographies that match their skills and experience.
JTI was careful to frame AI as an enabler rather than a replacement for human judgment. However, its description of AI projects already in place or in the pipeline suggests a gradual shift in how large organizations allocate talent: less through static job structures and more by skills, experience and project needs.
For a global tobacco company, that could be particularly relevant. The development of reduced-risk products and new nicotine categories requires faster cross-functional collaboration among science, regulation, product development, digital, marketing and supply chain teams.
AI can make those connections more visible. Whether it can make organizations more agile depends on how deeply companies are willing to redesign the processes around the tools.
Why JTI Does Not Call AI a “Digital Employee”
(Ross Hennessy, Global Talent Management and DEI VP)
As generative AI advances, some companies have begun to discuss the concept of “digital employees” — AI systems that can take on parts of knowledge work or operational tasks.
“At this stage we don’t see AI as a ‘digital employee’ meant to replace people, rather as a digital collaborative partner designed to amplify people’s potential and talents,” JTI said.
The distinction keeps AI inside JTI’s human-management framework. Routine work can be shifted to tools such as ChatJTI, but the company says creativity, strategic decisions and meaningful team interactions remain human responsibilities.
At the same time, JTI acknowledged the management risks that come with integrating AI into corporate work. It said AI can process data at scale, but lacks human judgment, empathy and nuance — qualities the company considers essential to its people-centric culture.
“We are also vigilant against overreliance, ensuring that AI remains a tool for empowerment rather than a substitute for critical thinking,” JTI said.
The company also emphasized responsible AI guardrails, including security, transparency and bias mitigation across languages and regions. Its AI Academy, JTI said, is designed to help employees navigate an AI-augmented workplace with confidence while maintaining “a pinch of salt” toward exaggerated expectations about real-world AI implementation.
This cautious positioning may be important for employer branding. In an industry already facing public scrutiny, a message that AI will simply replace people could create internal and external risks. JTI is instead presenting AI as a way to strengthen employees, not displace them.
Workforce Design: Caution Rather Than Disruption
(Sergei Polianski, Agile, Strategy and Portfolio Governance VP)
JTI is more cautious when discussing whether AI will affect workforce size, hiring plans or organizational layers.
The company said it sees AI as a catalyst for productivity and quality, helping teams simplify work and make faster, better decisions. It acknowledged that automation can reduce manual effort in some activities but said it does not generalize structural outcomes and assesses operating models case by case.
“As we scale AI responsibly, it can influence the skills we need over time, with greater focus on digital, data and specialized expertise,” JTI said.
That answer reflects a broader tension facing large companies across sectors. AI can reduce repetitive work, but the organizational consequences are rarely uniform. Automation may remove some manual tasks while increasing demand for specialized talent, stronger data governance and new forms of oversight.
For tobacco and nicotine companies, this tension is sharper because AI is arriving at the same time as other structural changes: declining combustible volumes in many markets, the rise of reduced-risk products, tighter regulation, illicit market pressure and changing consumer expectations.
JTI’s response suggests that the company is not positioning AI as a simple cost-cutting tool. Instead, it positions the technology as part of a broader capability shift – including return on employees (e.g. AI as virtual employee assistant), return on AI investment (e.g. productivity gains) or return on the future (e.g. future capabilities and value streams). AI may change the mix of skills required, even if the company avoids making broad claims about future workforce size or structure at this stage.
The Next Capability Race
JTI’s case is part of a wider shift across international tobacco companies. Based on 2Firsts’ background research, major groups including PMI, BAT, JTI, Imperial Brands and Altria have explored or deployed AI-related initiatives between 2024 and 2026, from generative AI platforms and robotic process automation to manufacturing diagnostics, trade execution, legal and compliance workflows, predictive maintenance and employee training.
The pattern differs by company. Some initiatives focus on internal knowledge and employee productivity; others are aimed at manufacturing efficiency, market execution, compliance or analytics-led decision-making. Regulators are moving as well, with the FDA expanding AI-assisted review and agency-wide AI capabilities.
The timing is critical. International tobacco companies are already competing to move from traditional combustible products toward reduced-risk and new nicotine categories. That transition demands a broader mix of capabilities than the cigarette business historically required: scientific evidence, regulatory submissions, consumer data, digital engagement, faster innovation cycles and more adaptive organizations.
AI now sharpens that contest. Companies with stronger data systems, faster learning loops and more flexible talent models may be better positioned to respond to regulators, develop new products, manage supply chains, identify market risks and move scientific and technical expertise across borders.
The fight for the next phase of nicotine will not be decided only in laboratories, factories or regulatory filings. It will also be decided inside companies – in how quickly they can move skills, absorb new tools and make decisions across scientific, commercial and compliance functions.
JTI’s case shows AI moving from software into management practice. For tobacco companies already trying to reposition themselves around new nicotine categories, that may become one of the harder tests: not whether they can buy AI tools, but whether they can build organizations capable of using them.
Follow 2Firsts for continued coverage of the transformation of the global tobacco and nicotine industry.
Cover image generated by AI.
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