AI · 2 October 2026
Trump’s answer to AI’s image problem: Industry self-regulation and a new name
US President Donald Trump has ordered the federal government to call artificial intelligence “Super Intelligence,” while keeping the technology’s legal definition unchanged and relying on industry to set the rules for its use. In an executive order , the White House administration said modern systems “far exceed what was envisioned when the term ‘Artificial Intelligence’ first came into use,” adding they “increasingly represent not merely artificial intelligence, but a new era of Super Intelligence.” “It is therefore the policy of my Administration that, to the maximum extent permitted by law, the executive branch shall use the terms ‘Super Intelligence’ and ‘SI’ in place of ‘Artificial Intelligence’ and ‘AI’,” Trump ordered. The executive branch “will not acknowledge” the older terms in any applicable setting, the order stated. Yet the order defines the new term using the old one. Section 3 of the order says Super Intelligence means the technologies and systems covered by the statutor
What happened
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order directing the federal government to replace the term "Artificial Intelligence" with "Super Intelligence" (and "AI" with "SI") across the executive branch, "to the maximum extent permitted by law." The order states that modern systems "far exceed what was envisioned when the term 'Artificial Intelligence' first came into use" and describes them as representing "a new era of Super Intelligence."
Despite the rebrand, the order leaves AI's legal and regulatory definition unchanged — Section 3 defines "Super Intelligence" by reference to the existing statutory definition of artificial intelligence. The administration's approach otherwise favours industry self-regulation over new binding rules for how AI is developed or deployed.
Why it matters
This is a naming and framing exercise rather than a substantive policy shift: the underlying technologies, their capabilities and their legal treatment remain exactly as defined before the order. For organisations building or deploying AI, the operative reality — what systems can do, how they are regulated, and what obligations apply — is unchanged.
The move is nonetheless a signal of how governments are managing public perception of AI at a moment when capability claims, safety concerns and adoption anxiety are all rising simultaneously. For digital transformation and AI leaders, it's a reminder that terminology battles can dominate headlines while the harder questions — governance, accountability, workforce impact, and how self-regulation actually gets enforced — remain unresolved.
The Renascence take
Renaming a technology doesn't change how people experience it, and that gap is where the real story sits.
Labels shape expectations long before products ship, which is exactly why this matters more as a behavioral signal than a policy one. Calling something "Super Intelligence" primes users and regulators to expect more — and to forgive less when it falls short. Experience and AI leaders should treat this as a cue to tighten the gap between what their systems are named and what they can actually, reliably do, because inflated framing without matching governance or disclosure is a trust liability waiting to surface.
Sources
This briefing was written by our Newsdesk, synthesising reporting from the outlets below. Follow the links for the original coverage.
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