Why Trump wants to rename AI "Super Intelligence": a dated timeline

The timeline

Saturday 19 September 2026: the first poll

On Truth Social, the President wrote that “many people think that the words ‘Artificial Intelligence’ are inaccurate, and very ineloquent”, and proposed three alternatives he called more “elegant and accurate”: Superior Intelligence (SI), Extreme Intelligence (EI) and Supreme Intelligence (SI). He asked followers to vote.

The same day, in a separate post, he described what he called a campaign to “decimate” American AI, linking it to earlier opposition to data centres, and said he would not “stand by and let it happen”.

Monday 21 September 2026: the second poll, the AI Force and an AI Czar

A second Truth Social post narrowed the choice to “SUPER INTELLIGENCE” versus “SUPERIOR INTELLIGENCE”. Subsequent posts used “Super Intelligence” and the initials “SI”.

In the same period he announced two new things. First, that he was “forming the AI Force, much like I did Space Force, which has been a tremendous SUCCESS, in my First Term”. Second, that he would appoint an AI “Czar”, adding that “Only High I.Q. individuals need apply!” Neither the AI Force’s remit nor the Czar’s role had been set out in any published document at the time of writing.

Tuesday 22 September 2026: the UN General Assembly

In his address to the UN General Assembly in New York, the President said that US government documents would use the term “super intelligence” going forward instead of “artificial intelligence”. He also said the United States leads and would continue to lead the technology’s development, repeated his view that fears about AI were overblown, said he would monitor the industry “closely through the Department of Justice”, and said he opposed new regulation of it.

Tuesday 22 September 2026: the White House publishes the wording

The same day, the White House published a press release on the speech, “President Trump at the United Nations: ‘While Others Have Talked, I Have Acted’”. It quotes the President as follows: “The United States totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme of control for the Artificial Intelligence being spoken of so much now — hereinafter officially called ‘Super Intelligence.’”

This is a different kind of evidence from the news reports of the speech: it is the White House itself reproducing and publishing the wording. It is not, however, an executive order, a directive to agencies or a federal style guide, and the release does not mention any. It establishes that the White House has published the term “officially called ‘Super Intelligence’”; it does not establish that the term has been adopted across US government documents.

Tuesday 29 September 2026: an executive order

On 29 September 2026 the President signed an executive order, Inaugurating The Era Of Super Intelligence, published in the Federal Register on 2 October 2026 as Executive Order 14434. It directs executive departments and agencies, “to the maximum extent permitted by law”, to use “Super Intelligence” and “SI” in place of “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI” in official correspondence, public communications, websites, reports, policy documents and other non-statutory documents. It does not require previously issued regulations, contracts, grants or other historical documents to be altered. Our section-by-section explainer of the order.

Two features of the order matter for anyone trying to understand what the term now means. First, for the purposes of the order, “Super Intelligence” means the technologies already covered by the existing US legal definition of artificial intelligence, in section 9401(3) of title 15 of the United States Code. Legally, it is a new name for the same technologies. The order’s statement of purpose does describe today’s systems as representing “a new era of Super Intelligence”, but that is a description, not a finding that any system meets the research definition of superintelligence. Second, the order does not change that legal definition. It asks the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology to submit, within 60 days, proposed legislative language for a federal definition of “Super Intelligence”, including an assessment of whether it should modify or supersede the statutory definition of artificial intelligence. Changing the statute would need an Act of Congress.

The order’s statement of purpose goes further than its operative section, saying that the executive branch “will not acknowledge the usage” of “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI” in any applicable setting.

Tuesday 29 September 2026: the White House Accord

The same day, after a White House meeting and lunch with industry leaders, the President, the chief executives of Google, Meta, Anthropic and Nvidia, OpenAI’s president Greg Brockman and Elon Musk signed a document reported as the “White House Accord on Super Intelligence”. As published in full by the Washington Examiner, it sets out four layers of controls that each company should implement for its most capable models: internal controls to monitor their capabilities and alignment, an internal team to check that those controls work, an independent external auditor or evaluator, and an independent committee of the board. It says that over time it may make sense to codify such steps in law or regulation. Reporting describes the accord as voluntary and not legally binding. As of 2 October 2026 we found no text of the accord on whitehouse.gov. What the accord says, and what it leaves out.

Sunday 4 October 2026: the Super Intelligence Force

President Trump announced a federal task force called the Super Intelligence Force. It is led by Jay Clayton, Director of National Intelligence, who was also named the administration’s AI czar. FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, Pentagon chief technology officer Emil Michael and OPM Director Scott Kupor were also named to the task force’s leadership. Clayton said the task force has 120 days to deliver a report on the risks and opportunities of AI and the federal government’s role.

Thursday 8 October 2026: first leadership meeting planned

Vice chair Scott Kupor told Reuters that the task force’s four leaders would meet that week and the full committee the week after. He said a charter setting out the group’s goals and responsibilities is expected after the first full committee meeting.

Thursday 8 October 2026: the science fact sheet

A White House fact sheet announcing more than $6 billion of science commitments used the new term itself, under the heading “Equipping American scientists with Super Intelligence”. It also announced cooperation between the US National Science Foundation and the Metascience Unit of UK Research and Innovation on measuring research impact and improving research review. That is cooperation on how science is funded and assessed, not an agreement about AI.

Monday 19 October 2026: the State Department applies the order

Nextgov reported on 20 October that a State Department cable, dated that Monday, told staff to use “Super Intelligence” or “SI” in new letters, emails, public messages, websites, reports and policy documents, subject to legal exceptions, and renamed the American AI Exports Program the American SI Exports Program. Wording required by law, contracts and grants, and previously published documents were left alone. The same report said the Office of Personnel Management had launched a programme called “SI GAP” to help agencies adopt the technology.

Coming up

• 28 November 2026: the deadline for the White House science adviser to submit proposed legislative language on a federal definition of “Super Intelligence”. What that deadline means.
• Early 2027: the Super Intelligence Force’s report is expected, around February 2027.

What has actually changed

• An executive order for US federal documents. Executive Order 14434 of 29 September 2026 directs federal agencies, to the maximum extent permitted by law, to use “Super Intelligence” and “SI” in non-statutory documents. It follows the convention the President stated at the UN and the White House published on 22 September 2026. Agencies have begun to apply it: in October 2026 the State Department ordered the new wording across its communications. How consistently the rest of the federal government complies is not yet known.
• No change in statute. An executive order directs the executive branch; it is not an Act of Congress. The order leaves the statutory definition of artificial intelligence in place, defines “Super Intelligence” as the same set of technologies, and asks for proposed legislative language within 60 days. Until Congress legislates, the legal term remains “artificial intelligence”.
• Nothing outside the US government. At the time of writing, no other government, regulator or standards body had adopted the term. The UK’s AI Security Institute has not changed its name.
• Nothing about the technology. The systems people use (chatbots, image generators, coding assistants) are the same systems they were on 18 September.

Why the choice of word matters

The word “superintelligence” was not free for the taking. It has a specific meaning in AI research going back at least to the philosopher Nick Bostrom’s 2014 book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies: an intellect that greatly exceeds the cognitive performance of humans in virtually all domains. That is a hypothetical future system, not a description of anything that exists today, and a large part of the academic and policy debate about AI risk is about whether and when such a system might be built.

Using the same word for ordinary present-day AI therefore creates an ambiguity. When a UK reader now sees “super intelligence” in a headline, it may mean either. This site keeps the two apart: we say “AI” for the technology in general use, and “superintelligence” only in the research sense, and we flag the administration’s usage explicitly where it comes up. Our explainer on the difference is here.

What people have said in reply

This page does not adjudicate the reaction, but records what has been reported. Coverage sympathetic to the President has framed the rename, together with the AI Force, as part of a push for American leadership in the technology and a rejection of what it calls the “AI establishment”. Some social-media users responded to the poll by suggesting “American Intelligence” instead. UK technology press has described the move as a proposed rebranding rather than a technical redefinition of the term, noting that “superintelligence” already has an established meaning in the work of Nick Bostrom and others. The announcements came during a period of renewed public argument about AI safety, following the resignation of an Anthropic researcher over safety concerns and a subsequent plan by Anthropic’s chief executive to “pace the frontier”.

What we are watching

• How federal agencies implement the executive order, and whether the term appears in federal documents in practice.
• The proposed legislative definition of “Super Intelligence”, due to the President within 60 days of 29 September 2026 (by 28 November 2026), and whether Congress acts on it.
• Whether the companies that signed the White House Accord say how they are meeting it.
• What the Super Intelligence Force’s charter and 120-day report say, and whether the “AI Force” announced in September turns out to be the same body or a separate one.
• Whether any UK body (government, regulator or institute) adopts the term.
• How the major AI companies refer to their own products in US filings and announcements.

This page is reviewed monthly, or sooner when something changes.