Trump signed an executive order at the end of September directing government agencies to rename artificial intelligence as "Super Intelligence," according to MIT Technology Review. The report says the term beat out "Extreme Intelligence" and "Supreme Intelligence," which Trump offered in an X poll.
The stated reason for the change is that today's AI systems "amplify human ingenuity" rather than merely "imitate" intelligence. The report argues that the rebrand could become a political loyalty test, with people who use the new term seen as aligned with the administration.
Adoption is uneven. The report says that "SI" now appears on some government solicitations, including an Immigration and Customs Enforcement request for "SI-powered" surveillance for detention facilities. It also says some agency materials still use "AI," and that a Pentagon initiative called Project Meridian used the old terminology. A Federal Trade Commission press release used "superintelligence," not the capitalized two-word form the order requires.
On October 27, Trump criticized the Wall Street Journal on Truth Social for not using "Super Intelligence." The report says he suggested a new rule could go further and ban "artificial intelligence" from government documents.
Among tech executives who signed the White House Accord on Super Intelligence, the report says the term has not caught on. A CNBC analysis of third-quarter earnings calls found that only Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk used it consistently, and the report notes that Meta had used "superintelligence" before the order. Executives at Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet mostly used "AI," though Microsoft's shareholder letter referred to the "Super Intelligence era."