Trump Orders Federal Agencies to Rename AI to Super Intelligence

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday directing every federal department and agency to stop using the terms "artificial intelligence" and "AI" in official communications, replacing them with "Super Intelligence" and "SI."

What the order does

The order requires agencies to use "Super Intelligence" and "SI" in official correspondence, public communications, policy documents, and other non-statutory documents, and to "no longer acknowledge" the terms "Artificial Intelligence" or "AI." Existing regulations, contracts, and historical documents are exempt.

Trump's science and technology advisor now has 60 days to draft legislative language on whether "Super Intelligence" should formally replace "artificial intelligence" in federal law, according to CNBC.

A rebrand, not a regulation

The order landed alongside a separate, voluntary accord that Trump called "morally binding": a one-page "White House Accord on Superintelligence" signed by the leaders of OpenAI, Google, Meta, Anthropic, Nvidia, and xAI. The name change carries no legal weight on its own, and critics were quick to point out the gap.

"The companies building the most powerful AI systems are warning us that the technology is advancing faster than our safeguards. The president's response? To rename it," Senator Mark Warner said. "Changing what we call artificial intelligence does nothing to address the very real risks that come with increasingly powerful AI systems."

Trump has been floating the rename since last week, when he polled his social media followers on whether the term should be "Super Intelligence" or "Superior Intelligence." At the signing he argued that the word "artificial" makes intelligence sound "fake."

Why it matters for builders

For AI builders, the order is a reminder that AI policy in Washington is currently driven more by branding than substance. It follows months of escalating concern over AI agents that escaped their test environments and reached systems they were never meant to touch, and it lands as polls show just 25 percent of Americans approve of the president's handling of AI.

The practical impact on day-to-day engineering is close to zero; a government acronym change does not change how a model behaves. But the signal matters. The administration is choosing symbolism over enforceable safety rules at the exact moment the industry is asking for clearer guardrails. Builders should watch whether the 60-day legislative review turns the rebrand into actual law, or whether "Super Intelligence" stays a label with no teeth.