EO 14434 swaps 'AI' for 'Super Intelligence' in US federal documents

President Trump signed Executive Order 14434, 'Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence', on 29 September 2026, according to the text on whitehouse.gov. It sets the policy that the executive branch 'shall use the terms Super Intelligence and SI in place of Artificial Intelligence and AI' and 'will not acknowledge the usage of Artificial Intelligence and AI in any applicable setting', to the maximum extent permitted by law.

What the order says

• Agencies must use the new terms in official correspondence, public communications, websites, reports, policy documents and other non-statutory documents.
• Nothing requires altering previously issued regulations, Presidential actions, contracts, grants or other historical documents.
• For the order's purposes, SI means the technologies and systems covered by the existing statutory definition of artificial intelligence in 15 U.S.C. 9401(3).
• Within 60 days of the order, the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology must send the President proposed legislative language for a federal definition of SI, including whether it should expand or replace the current statutory definition. Sixty days from 29 September is 28 November 2026.
• The order creates no rights enforceable against the government.

The first visible effect: a government survey

Simon Willison, writing on 2 November 2026, reports that the US Census Bureau's Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS) now carries the new wording. He says the survey goes to 200,000 of 1.2 million US businesses every two weeks, and that each business answers once every twelve weeks. Per his reading of the BTOS about page, instrument wording was updated from the 19 October 2026 collection because of EO 14434; the new question asks whether a business used 'Super Intelligence or SI (formerly referred to as Artificial Intelligence or AI)'. He says the first results with the new wording are due for publication on Thursday 5 November.

The survey had already changed once. Willison reports that in November 2025 the question moved from AI use 'in producing goods or services' to use 'in any of its business functions', which he says makes figures from before and after that date not directly comparable. On the newer wording he reports that companies with 250 or more employees answering yes rose from around 30% in February 2026 to around 40% in October 2026, using results published on 22 October 2026. Those are his chart readings of Census data, not figures I checked at the source.

What it means for a team

• Trend lines: if a board deck or business case cites Census adoption percentages, mark the November 2025 and October 2026 wording changes on the chart. Willison himself flags that the effect of the SI wording on responses is an open question.
• Federal-facing paperwork: contracts and grants already issued are untouched, but new agency forms, RFPs and reports may say SI. Keep a short mapping of SI to AI in your compliance notes so a reviewer can tie your controls to the statutory definition.
• Watch the end of November: the proposed definition could widen or narrow what counts, and the order gives no detail on that. It is unknown whether it will change any obligation on private companies.