AI or SI? What we call it, and why

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the everyday term for software that turns data into predictions, recommendations, decisions or new content. US law defines it as a machine-based system that does this toward goals people set.³ Chatbots, voice assistants, spam filters and bank fraud alerts all count.

Artificial general intelligence (AGI) means AI at least as capable as people at most thinking tasks, in Google DeepMind's description.⁴ Not every company likes the label: Anthropic's chief executive calls it imprecise and prefers “powerful AI.”⁵ On a tax form, AGI means something else entirely: adjusted gross income.⁶

Superintelligence goes further: AI that would outperform every person at nearly every kind of thinking work. Large AI companies name it as a goal, from Meta, which reorganized its AI teams as Meta Superintelligence Labs in 2025, to Microsoft's AI division.⁷⁸ OpenAI describes superintelligent systems as a possible future that would need new safeguards, and experts disagree about whether or when that future arrives.⁹

On September 29, 2026, an executive order told federal agencies to use “Super Intelligence” and “SI” in place of “artificial intelligence” and “AI” on websites and in reports, letters and other communications.¹ The order says today's systems have outgrown the older name. It defines SI as exactly the technology US law already calls AI, and asks for proposed legislation on a new legal definition.¹

The change is already visible. AI.gov now forwards to SI.gov, and the AI topic pages of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) now say super intelligence.¹⁰¹¹¹² Rollout is uneven: a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) scam alert on October 15, 2026 said “artificial intelligence (AI),” while a joint FBI and CISA alert the next day said “super intelligence (SI).”¹³¹⁴

The switch is recent. The administration's July 2025 AI Action Plan said AI throughout and never used superintelligence, and laws, regulations and older documents keep their AI wording because the order doesn't require changing them.¹⁵¹ Elsewhere AI remains the standard term, including in NIST's AI Risk Management Framework, the European Union's AI Act, the UK's AI Security Institute, the 2026 International AI Safety Report and the 2026 Associated Press (AP) Stylebook, which added an entry for “AI agent.”^1617181920

Other people use superintelligence for something quite different. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Representative Greg Casar (D-Texas) introduced a bill in September 2026 to ban artificial superintelligence, defined as AI that exceeds human cognitive ability or could destroy or disempower humanity.²¹ A 2025 statement calling for a prohibition on building superintelligence until scientists agree it can be done safely and the public supports it drew signers from conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck and former Trump White House aide Steve Bannon to former national security adviser Susan Rice.²²²³

Meanwhile, Axios reported that some tech leaders, including Nvidia's chief executive, have embraced SI as well.²⁴ So the same two letters can now mean today's AI tools, in federal usage, or a far more powerful future AI, in research and in that bill.

In an October 2026 Ipsos poll of a randomly selected national sample (its KnowledgePanel), 46% of Americans said they had heard nothing at all about super intelligence, compared with 7% for artificial intelligence.²⁵ Just 13% had heard a great deal or quite a bit about SI, against 49% for AI.²⁵

Asked which is the better name in YouGov's online panel the day before the order (September 28, 2026), 53% of US adults chose “artificial intelligence” and 9% chose “super intelligence.”² Democrats (62% to 6%), independents (50% to 7%) and Republicans (48% to 13%) all preferred AI.² People 65 and older preferred it 48% to 8%, and 29% of them had no preference.²

Searches tell the same story. In Google Trends data for the US, searches for “super intelligence” jumped the week the order was signed and faded within weeks, and they never came close to searches for “AI.”²⁶

Older adults are also the least familiar with AI itself. In Pew Research Center surveys, 32% of adults 65 and older had heard a lot about AI in 2025, compared with 62% of adults under 30, and 23% of people 65 and older had ever used an AI chatbot by early 2026.²⁷²⁸ A second, less familiar label would make the topic harder for the readers who most need it to be clear.

A safety guide has to be understood on the first read. AI is the word most of our readers already know, and it has one dominant everyday meaning. SI currently has two, and the letters already stand for the metric system and Slovenia's web addresses (.si).²⁹³⁰

We are non-partisan, and concern about AI is not a party issue. In Pew's 2026 survey, 49% of Republicans and 56% of Democrats said they were more concerned than excited about AI in daily life.³¹ In a 2026 study by Gallup and the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP), 79% of Americans said government should keep safety and data-security rules even if that slows AI down, and Republicans, Democrats and independents broadly agreed.³²

Today “SI” is tied to the administration's order, and “superintelligence” is the subject of a ban bill from Senator Sanders and Representative Casar. Making either our main word would make plain safety advice sound like it takes a side, and we would lose readers we want to help.

Renaming doesn't change what the tools can do. The order itself defines SI by the existing legal definition of AI, so the risks and the defenses on this site stay the same.¹

You will find SI in our glossary, on this page, in a homepage note that defines it, and in quotes from federal notices, where we translate it the first time: super intelligence (SI, the federal government's term for AI). We don't pair the two terms in our name, tagline or headlines.

Our advice doesn't change with the label. If an FBI or CISA alert warns about SI, it is describing the same phishing, voice cloning and deepfakes we cover under AI.¹⁴

We would switch, or start pairing the terms, if any one of these happens: Congress writes “super intelligence” or “SI” into federal law in place of “artificial intelligence”; the AP Stylebook or another major newsroom style guide adopts SI for today's AI tools; a national poll of comparable quality to the ones on this page finds more adults, including older adults, prefer SI to AI; or US Google search interest in “super intelligence” holds at one-tenth of interest in “AI” or more for three straight months.

We re-check at least every six months, with the next review by April 2027, and also when the proposed definition the order requested (due to the President by November 28, 2026) is made public.¹ If the evidence moves, we will update this page and say what changed.

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