Trump has officially ordered the US government to stop saying “AI”

President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled "Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence" on Tuesday directing every federal agency to use "Super Intelligence" and "SI" in place of "Artificial Intelligence" and "AI" in official correspondence, public communications, websites, reports and policy documents, and stating the executive branch "will not acknowledge the usage of 'Artificial Intelligence' and 'AI' in any applicable setting." The order defines "Super Intelligence" as the same thing US law already calls artificial intelligence under section 9401(3) of title 15 of the US Code, leaves existing regulations, contracts, grants and past presidential actions unchanged, and gives the President's science adviser 60 days to draft legislation on a federal definition of "Super Intelligence." The order was signed the same day Trump hosted the bosses of the biggest AI companies for lunch and announced a voluntary, "morally binding" self-regulation pact in place of new rules, and alongside a second order formally setting up America.gov as a single conversational front door to federal services.

Donald Trump in the Oval Office with executive orders ready to sign in January 2025. Image: The White House <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:President Donald Trump signing executive orders 03 .jpg / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain, cropped A week after telling the UN https://madrobot.blog/2026/09/22/trump-un-speech-ai-superintelligence/ that artificial intelligence would now be called “superintelligence”, Donald Trump has made it official. An executive order https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/09/inaugurating-the-era-of-super-intelligence/ signed on Tuesday tells every federal agency to use “Super Intelligence” and “SI” in place of “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI”. The order, titled “Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence”, went up on the White House website on Tuesday evening, hours after Trump hosted the bosses of the biggest AI companies for lunch and announced a voluntary, “morally binding” pact https://madrobot.blog/2026/09/29/trump-ai-leaders-sign-morally-binding-self-regulation-accord-white-house-lunch/ in place of new rules. What the order says It argues that today’s systems “do much more than imitate or automate discrete aspects of human intelligence” and so “increasingly represent not merely artificial intelligence, but a new era of Super Intelligence.” The government’s language, it says, should reflect “the limitless opportunities they create for the American people.” From now on, “to the maximum extent permitted by law”, agencies must use the new terms in “official correspondence, public communications, websites, reports, policy documents, and other non-statutory documents”. The order goes further than a style guide: it says the executive branch “will not acknowledge the usage of ‘Artificial Intelligence’ and ‘AI’ in any applicable setting.” What it doesn’t change For all the talk of a new era, the order keeps the old meaning. It defines “Super Intelligence” as exactly what US law already calls artificial intelligence, the definition in section 9401 3 of title 15 of the US Code. Existing regulations, contracts, grants and past presidential actions don’t have to be rewritten, and laws passed by Congress still say “artificial intelligence”. That could change. Within 60 days, the President’s science adviser must send Trump draft legislation for a federal definition of “Super Intelligence”, including whether it should “modify, expand upon, or otherwise supersede” the legal definition of artificial intelligence. Any change to the law would need Congress. The order also has an awkward side effect. Among AI researchers, “superintelligence” usually means AI that is smarter than humans at almost everything, the kind of system that people such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez want to make illegal to build https://madrobot.blog/2026/09/26/aoc-superintelligence-ban-act-sanders-casar-20-years-prison/ . Under the order, the same word now covers everyday chatbots. A busy day for Trump and AI It was one of two AI-related orders Trump signed on Tuesday. The other formally set up America.gov https://madrobot.blog/2026/09/25/america-gov-ai-trump-musk-jensen-huang-launch/ as a single “conversational” front door to federal services, and its text already uses the new wording, promising that the “super intelligence” behind it will be “accurate, reliable, and transparent”. Why it matters On its own, a change of name doesn’t alter how AI is built or regulated. But it shows where the White House’s attention is: on selling the technology as a national triumph, on the same day it swapped binding rules for a voluntary pledge from the companies building it. Sources: White House executive order, “Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence” https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/09/inaugurating-the-era-of-super-intelligence/ , White House executive order on America.gov https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/09/streamlining-access-to-government-services-through-america-gov/ .