The federal government no longer says "artificial intelligence." It says "Super Intelligence" — capital S, capital I — and President Trump would like you to know he is serious about the rebrand.
On September 29, Trump signed Executive Order 14434, "Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence," directing federal agencies to use "Super Intelligence" and "SI" instead of "artificial intelligence" and "AI" in official correspondence, websites, reports, policy documents, and other non-statutory documents — to the maximum extent permitted by law. The order was published in the Federal Register on October 2.
The seeds were planted a week earlier. On September 22, speaking at the UN General Assembly, Trump said he would rename the technology because "artificial" makes it sound fake. A State Department bureau started swapping the term in staff remarks days later.
Here is what actually changed: nothing technical. The order defines "Super Intelligence" as covering exactly the technologies already captured by the statutory definition of artificial intelligence in 15 U.S.C. 9401(3). Existing laws, contracts, and grants are untouched. There are no penalties. Private companies are not required to rename anything — though Elon Musk voluntarily renamed SpaceXAI to SpaceXSI on October 4, because of course he did.
The machinery is moving anyway. Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter issued a memo on October 6 requiring the terminology across DOJ communications, including court filings where appropriate. AI.gov began rebranding on October 8 — its logo now reads "SI GOV" — though the transition is a mess: the domain is still ai.gov and half the site's metadata still says AI.
Trump escalated the theater on October 8, posting on Truth Social that people who use "artificial intelligence" instead of "Super Intelligence" are "THE ENEMY!" The public, meanwhile, is unmoved: a YouGov poll found 53 percent prefer "artificial intelligence" and just 9 percent prefer "super intelligence." California's governor reportedly told state agencies to keep saying AI.
The order's one substantive provision is a 60-day task: the White House science and technology adviser must propose legislative language for a federal definition of Super Intelligence by late November. That definition could eventually diverge from international standards and existing statutes — the part of this story that might actually matter.
The same day the order was signed, CEOs from Google, Meta, Anthropic, OpenAI, Nvidia, and xAI signed a voluntary White House Accord on Super Intelligence — internal controls, independent assessments, board-level oversight, no enforcement. A pledge, in other words.
Call it what you want. The technology did not change. Only the letterhead did.
