Trump’s ‘Super Intelligence’ Rebrand Finds Little Traction Beyond Washington

President Donald Trump’s declaration that the United States will replace the term artificial intelligence with super intelligence has triggered limited adoption inside government and almost none across industry, media, or major technology platforms, according to a Security Point Break review of federal directives, newsroom usage, and corporate terminology.

In a speech Tuesday to the United Nations General Assembly, he said, “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.’”

Super Intelligence, or SI, has been adopted by one State Department bureau in the three days since Trump announced it. No executive order, government-wide directive or private-sector change has followed.

The State Department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs issued an internal directive instructing diplomats to replace “AI” with “SI” in official documents, speeches, and press elements, according to Associated Press reporting.

“Following the president’s remarks at the GA today, please change all references of ‘Artificial Intelligence’ to ‘Super Intelligence’ in our documents and positions. We will be using ‘SI’ in all remarks, positions and press elements moving forward,” wrote Michael Drager, deputy assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, according to an AP’s report.

Other federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and National Science Foundation, continue using “artificial intelligence” in public-facing materials, grant programs, and safety frameworks published since President Trump’s Tuesday decoration.

Media Adoption: Headlines Only, Not Terminology

News organizations are showing no adoption.

Mainstream outlets, such as the AP, Reuters, CNN, CBS and NBC, have not replaced “AI” in stylebooks or reporting.

Newsmax on Thursday published “State Department Tells Diplomats to Use ‘Super Intelligence,’” then separately published “Trump, House Speaker, Tech CEOs to Meet on AI on Tuesday.” Newsmax Breitbart used “Welcome to SI” in coverage of Trump’s announcement, but other fresh Breitbart stories continued to refer to AI.

All Brietbart, Newsmax and Fox News continue using “AI” in routine coverage, including stories published the same day.

Language Tools and Dictionaries: No Changes

No major dictionary, including Merriam‑Webster, Oxford, Cambridge, has updated entries to reflect Trump’s terminology.

Writing tools such as Grammarly, Microsoft Editor, and Apple autocorrect continue flagging “Super Intelligence” when used to describe current AI systems.

Lake America, Gulf of America: Executive Orders vs. Declarations

What has not surfaced is a comparable government-wide administrative action when Trump renamed both Lake Ontario to Lake America and Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America.

A side-by-side comparison of how the three renames were adopted appears at the end of this story.

The geographic renames took a different path. Trump signed Executive Order 14172 on Jan. 20, 2025, and Google Maps began showing “Gulf of America” to U.S. users about three weeks later. He signed Executive Order 14422 on Aug. 27, 2026 and two days later, Google said it would display “Lake America” in the United States.

As of Sept. 25, no executive order, presidential memorandum or Federal Register notice renaming AI had been published. Only one mention of the name change surfaced within a press release tied to President Trumps UN address.  

Those orders provided a pathway for the terminology to spread into private products.

Google said it made changes to Google Maps because it was important for Maps to reflect official government sources within the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), the official federal database and national standard for geographic names in the United States and Antarctica.

.Gov Sites Missed the Memo?

Meanwhile, the government’s own technology sites continue using AI.

AI.gov currently says the United States is competing for global dominance in “artificial intelligence” and repeatedly uses AI. NIST’s main technology page remains titled “Artificial intelligence,” while its standards program continues to use “AI Standards,” “AI systems” and “AI standards development.”

Super Intelligence vs Superintelligence

The proposed terminology also overlaps with an established technical meaning.

Cambridge Dictionary defines superintelligence as a computer or other entity with intelligence above the human level. Meta has used “personal superintelligence” since 2025, and Microsoft describes its Humanist Superintelligence work as AI capabilities beyond conventional systems.

So far, the two usages remain distinct. The administration is using “Super Intelligence” as a proposed replacement for artificial intelligence, while technology companies and reference works continue to use superintelligence for a more advanced class of AI.

For Cybersecurity Practitioners: Who Cares?

Why should cybersecurity professionals care about the shift from “artificial intelligence” to “super intelligence”?

Security relies on a shared vocabulary distinguishing AI, machine learning, generative AI and more advanced systems. Recasting all of it as “super intelligence” could muddy those distinctions across researchers, vendors and government. When something goes wrong fumbling over definitions makes it harder to quickly establish what technology failed, who is affected and which controls apply.

Microsoft overhauled its threat actor naming in 2023, then in 2025 partnered with CrowdStrike on a shared mapping of threat actor aliases. Microsoft said inconsistent naming across vendors slows threat actor attribution, complicates analysis, and delays incident response.

“Super intelligence” also skips past artificial general intelligence (AGI), a tier the industry hasn’t defined yet. Similar to threat actor aliases, without capability-based criteria shared by researchers, government, and vendors, the new term risks becoming imprecise branding.

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