[DUBLIN, SciDev.Net] Artificial Intelligence (AI) should be harnessed to clamp down on the tobacco sector targeting young people globally in the digital space, especially where resources are limited, a conference heard.

Speakers at the World Conference on Tobacco Control in Dublin this week (23-25 June) said some in the tobacco sector were increasingly seeking to engage younger consumers through flavoured products and under-the-radar social media advertising.

Young people are also being lured into addictive e-smoking substances, with those in poorer countries particularly vulnerable, analysts said.

Melina Samar Magsumbol, associate director for research at the global health organisation Vital Strategies, told SciDev.Net: “Social media is where the youth are — and that’s exactly where the tobacco industry is going.

“Instagram, TikTok, YouTube — these platforms are being used to glamorise tobacco through indirect marketing, often slipping through policy loopholes undetected.”

Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable death, killing 8 million people every year, according to the World Health Organization’s 2025 report on the global tobacco epidemic, released Monday (23 June), with poorer countries bearing the highest burden.

AI has emerged as a powerful tool in tobacco control efforts — especially in low- and middle-income countries, where 80 per cent of the 1.3 billion tobacco users worldwide reside.

In Indonesia, the Free Net from Tobacco coalition is using AI to identify YouTube videos containing cigarette and tobacco promotional content.

Reporting of this content to YouTube has resulted in many accounts being closed, protecting children from exposure to harmful advertising, the conference heard.

In Mexico and India, as well as Indonesia, Vital Strategies’ digital monitoring service Canary is using AI to expose how marketing of harmful, addictive products such as tobacco and alcohol have infiltrated digital spaces.

The programme provides real-time data and expert analysis to policymakers to identify emerging threats and alert key stakeholders.

“Many countries have laws, what lacks is enforcing them,” said Magsumbol.

“That’s where data becomes powerful. Canary gives us real-time data — evidence that cannot be ignored.”

The programme has reached more than 4 million people in India, where community teams are helping to create anti-tobacco content, using the same formats and digital tactics used by tobacco manufacturers.

“Young people have known that they are being manipulated, and then when they see these campaigns, they engage, share and push back because they are very smart,” added Magsumbol.

“AI allows us to detect logos, slogans, even specific influencers being paid by third-party sellers. And it adapts. Whether it’s TikTok in Uganda or WeChat in China, the system can be localised.”

Magsumbol notes that AI has been successful in tackling global health challenges and air pollution and could be just as beneficial in tobacco control.

She says traditional tobacco control methods such as taxation, advertising bans and smoke-free policies are effective but difficult to implement in low- and middle-income countries, where they often encounter limitations around scalability, cost-efficiency, reach, and long-term effectiveness.

AI is low-cost, scalable and adaptable to local contexts and can reach the increasingly targeted youth audience, she adds.

Pinpin Zheng, professor and director of the department of preventive medicine and health education at Fudan University’s School of Public Health, in China, presented promising results from an AI-driven personalised mobile health (mHealth) intervention, designed to support smoking cessation.

Developed using machine learning, the system delivers tailored messages and interactive tools such as games and peer insights, based on each user’s quitting stage and preferences.

She noted that in a randomised controlled trial involving 8,000 smokers, the intervention group achieved a quit rate more than double that of the control group — 18 per cent versus seven per cent.

Over 50 million smokers in China want to quit, but most lack access to effective cessation services, according to Zheng.

“Our study shows the significant potential of personalised mHealth interventions to transform smoking cessation efforts,” she told the conference.

“By combining machine learning with behaviour change theory, we created an intervention that can deliver cessation messages adapted to each user’s stage of quitting, preferences and needs in real-time.”

She said the findings highlight how theory-based, technology-driven solutions can bridge the gap in cessation services and provide cost-effective, wide-reaching strategies to empower smokers to quit.

Meanwhile, academics from the Institute of Clinical and Health Effectiveness (IECS) in Argentina unveiled new modelling data quantifying the devastating toll of tobacco use in five low- and middle-income countries: Bolivia, Honduras, Nigeria, Paraguay, and Uruguay.

The study projected that full implementation of four key tobacco control strategies — tax increases, plain packaging, advertising bans, and smoke-free environments — could avert up to 234,000 deaths and save as much as US$2 billion over the next decade.

Platforms like Canary are using AI to expose marketing of tobacco to young people online. Copyright: John Musenze / SciDev.Net

“In 2023 alone, smoking caused over 41,000 deaths and generated nearly 4.3 billion dollars in direct and indirect costs — equivalent to around one per cent of the countries’ combined GDP,” said Natalia Espinola, coordinator of health economics at IECS.

“The message is clear: countries must fully implement proven tobacco control policies.”

Experts say AI can support low- and middle-income countries to enforce and implement such policies, and track progress.

Launching the 2025 report, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also warned that failing to regulate tobacco alternatives with the same rigour as tobacco risks reversing years of public health gains.

He highlighted the tobacco industry’s promotion of products such as e-cigarettes, heated tobacco, and nicotine pouches — often marketed in bright packaging and candy-like flavours, attractive to young people.

“Our vigilance on new products must grow hand-in-hand with intensified action on conventional tobacco products,” Tedros urged.

This piece was produced by SciDev.Net’s Global desk