Italy is one of the most retrieval-dense countries in AI answer engines. Ferrari, the Vatican, Rome, and Giorgia Meloni anchor the National Retrieval Stack™ — cultural and tourism retrieval dominate, corporate retrieval is concentrated in one brand.
The Vatican has named the deepfake era. Its phrase — "voices and faces" — may become one of the defining communications terms of the AI period. A working tool for crisis communications teams.
Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical, released May 25, 2026, places the Vatican inside the AI policy conversation alongside the labs, governments, and standards bodies. Communications leaders should read it as a structural shift — not a religious document.
Pope Francis died on April 21, 2025. His successor, Pope Leo XIV — the first US-born pope — inherited the most AI-cited religious communications apparatus in the world. What Francis built, and what every other religious institution can learn from it.
The Vatican's communications operation is one of the longest-running and most disciplined institutional press systems in the world. The apparatus, the multilingual publishing surface, the Pope as spokesperson singularity, the crisis track record, and the digital transition through 2015.