Trump Rebrands Artificial Intelligence: What Will It Be Called in the U.S. Now?

On Tuesday, Donald Trump signed an executive order mandating all federal departments and agencies to replace the term "Artificial Intelligence" with "Superintelligence" in all official communications.

The order, titled "Ushering in the Era of Superintelligence," was made public on the White House website on September 29, 2026.

The Rationale Behind Trump's Decision

The order explains that current technologies have surpassed the original vision of the field. "The capabilities of today's cutting-edge systems go far beyond merely mimicking or automating specific aspects of human intelligence," the document states.

Based on this reasoning, it concludes that "the term 'Superintelligence' more accurately reflects the promise, potential, and rapidly advancing capabilities of these technologies."

During a meeting with tech industry leaders in the East Room of the White House, Trump was more blunt: "We are signing a document to change the name from 'artificial intelligence' because it is not artificial; we all agree on that," he declared.

Details of the Executive Order

The administration's policy, as outlined in the text, is that "to the extent permitted by law, the executive branch will use the terms 'Superintelligence' and 'SI' in place of 'Artificial Intelligence' and 'AI,' and will not acknowledge the use of the latter in any context."

This change applies to official correspondence, websites, reports, and policy documents, but does not require rewriting regulations, contracts, or historical documents already issued.

Additionally, it sets a 60-day deadline for the President’s Assistant for Science and Technology to present a legislative proposal with an official federal definition of the new term.

The Background and Technological Summit

This move was not made on a whim. On September 19, Trump launched a survey on Truth Social to rename AI, with options like "Superior Intelligence" or "Extreme Intelligence."

A week later, at the UN General Assembly, he announced the change unilaterally, arguing that "artificial" makes the technology "seem fake."

According to The Associated Press, the State Department had already instructed its diplomats to use the new term before the order was signed.

The signing took place after a working lunch attended by roughly two dozen tech executives from Silicon Valley, including Sundar Pichai (Google), Elon Musk (SpaceX/X), Dario Amodei (Anthropic), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), Jensen Huang (Nvidia), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), and Satya Nadella (Microsoft), among others.

The notable absentee was Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI.

Security Agreement and Expert Criticism

At the conclusion of the meeting, Trump and the executives signed a voluntary security agreement, which he described as "morally binding" and likened to a constitution: "It's almost like a constitution," he said.

However, the pact is not legally binding.

According to EFE, the agreement establishes four layers of controls: internal cybersecurity mechanisms, internal oversight teams, independent external auditors, and independent committees within the boards of directors.

The decision has faced criticism. Pedro Domingos, from the University of Washington, argued that calling current AI "superintelligence" is misleading.

Simon Coghlan, from the University of Melbourne, cautioned that in academic research, the term denotes a hypothetical system capable of surpassing itself, which current models do not achieve.

This measure comes just six weeks before the mid-term elections, where Trump and the Republicans are vying to maintain their slim majority in Congress.

The irony of the situation was not lost: the same executives who signed the agreement had called for stricter global regulation before the UN Security Council just days earlier.

Dario Amodei warned that "if mishandled, I believe AI could even pose a risk to humanity as a whole," while Sam Altman cautioned, "We could lose control of the future to AI."