Artificial Intelligence has been called “AI” for decades. Now, Donald Trump is changing that.
On September 29, 2026, Trump signed an executive order that officially introduced “Super Intelligence,” or SI, as the preferred term for AI in U.S. federal government communications.
Is this simply a rebrand, or are we changing the meaning of AI altogether?
And if the U.S. government starts saying SI instead of AI, could the rest of the world eventually follow?
This blog discusses why Trump changed the terminology, what “Super Intelligence” means, and whether this rebrand could reshape how we talk about AI.
Is AI Indeed Super Intelligence?
The term Artificial Intelligence has been around since 1956.
But for most people, AI did not become part of everyday life until much more recently. A major turning point came on November 30, 2022, when OpenAI publicly launched ChatGPT. Suddenly, anyone could open a chat window and ask AI to explain a concept, write an email, brainstorm ideas, and summarize information in seconds.
Now, that feels almost basic.
Today, AI can conduct multi-step research across hundreds of sources, analyze files and data, create presentations and spreadsheets, write and debug code, and interact with websites and software on a user’s behalf. The list of things it can’t do seems to be getting shorter by the day. AI coding tools can even help non-developers create websites and apps, while autonomous agents are increasingly able to pursue goals and work across professions and applications with limited human involvement.
For many people, AI has gone from being a chatbot to something closer to a researcher, consultant, coder, designer, analyst, creative partner, and personal assistant rolled into one.
The shift is changing how people work and what they need to learn in order to succeed in increasingly AI-driven roles.
Why Did Trump Change the Term AI to Super Intelligence?
That rapid evolution of AI is central to Trump’s argument for changing the name.
Trump has argued that the word “artificial” makes the technology sound fake, while “Super Intelligence” better reflects how powerful it has become. On September 29, 2026, he signed an executive order directing executive departments and agencies to use “Super Intelligence” and “SI” instead of “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI” in official correspondence, public communications, websites, reports, policy documents, and other non-statutory documents.
Trump changed the terminology primarily as a rebranding move. The specific wording also emerged through polls Trump conducted on Truth Social, his owned social network. He floated alternatives including “superior,” “extreme,” and “supreme” intelligence; “super intelligence” won the final poll against “superior intelligence”.
China is also part of the strategic context for the rebranding. Trump presented the rebranding alongside a push to maintain US technological leadership over China. At his September 22, 2026 UN speech, Trump linked the announcement to a geopolitical competition: “Whoever wins AI… and now I say, whoever wins SI, whoever wins superintelligence, wins.” In the same speech, he claimed the US was “leading now over China by a lot” and promised to preserve that advantage. China, for now, keeps the AI terminology.
However, experts quoted by the BBC called the rebranding misleading because it exaggerates current capabilities and uses a term researchers reserve for a substantially more advanced class of systems. Superintelligent AI has not been established as achieved, according to the reporting on the order.
What Does “Super Intelligence” Actually Mean?
Long before Trump proposed using “Super Intelligence” as a replacement name for AI, superintelligence already had an established meaning in AI research and technology discussions. Artificial superintelligence, or ASI, generally refers to a hypothetical AI system whose cognitive capabilities would substantially exceed those of humans across virtually all domains.
It is distinct from artificial general intelligence, or AGI, which emphasizes broadly applicable intelligence rather than necessarily far-superhuman performance
Under the new U.S. government terminology, “Super Intelligence” is being used as a replacement term for Artificial Intelligence itself, rather than as the name of a separate type of technology.
SI is an umbrella term for the technologies and systems that the federal government would previously have described as AI.
The White House is already using the term this way. In its announcement of America.gov, it said the platform uses “modern technology and Super Intelligence (SI)” to help people communicate with the government, receive answers, and access federal services.
The timing of the name change also comes as AI is increasingly reaching or exceeding human performance in specific areas. Stanford’s AI Index reports that leading AI systems are surpassing human-level performance on some benchmarks, while another Stanford report found that top AI agents outperformed human experts by around four times on certain complex tasks when working within a two-hour time window.
If SI – formerly known as AI – is already capable of doing things that would have sounded extraordinary only a few years ago, what will it be capable of a few years from now? As technology takes on more tasks independently, the way people work, learn, make decisions, and create value will continue to change with it – making the skills we teach today more important to rethink than ever.
How Wawiwa Helps Colleges Prepare Students for the AI – or SI – Era
The challenge for education is preparing people for a world in which technology can take on more tasks, reshape job roles, and change what employers expect from their workforce.
Wawiwa is a global education provider that supports colleges, universities, and training centers across the U.S. and around the world with education solutions built for the SI / AI era.
Wawiwa designs programs with both sides of the equation in mind: what students want to learn and what employers need them to be able to do. Through its JET Design™ methodology, Wawiwa starts with job requirements and works backward to define the tasks, skills, tools, and learning experiences that should shape the curriculum.
That approach matters even more as SI takes on work that was once performed entirely by people. Instead of preparing students only to complete traditional tasks, institutions need to prepare them to work in environments where some tasks are automated, others are SI-assisted, and new responsibilities emerge around judgment, verification, problem-solving, communication, and the effective use of intelligent tools.
Wawiwa helps institutions respond to that shift by developing practical AI and tech programs and courses, integrating AI into existing professions, updating curricula as technology and employer needs evolve, and helping faculty teach the skills students will need in changing workplaces.
Whether the acronym is AI, SI, or something else a few years from now, education cannot be built around a fixed version of technology. It has to evolve with the work itself.
Call it AI. Call it SI. The workforce challenge doesn’t change.
