October 3, 2026. If you sell to the US federal government, start writing "Super Intelligence (SI)" in proposals now, because that is the language your buyer has been ordered to use. If you sell to anyone else, keep saying "AI", because that is what your customers still type: Google's Keyword Planner shows US searches for "artificial general intelligence" alone at 1 million to 10 million a month, against 1,000 to 10,000 for "super intelligence". That is the decision guide in two sentences. The rest of this piece explains the rule behind it, what California did the next day, what the branding experts say, and the five-point checklist we are using with clients.
Key numbers
| Item | Number |
|---|---|
| Federal order making SI the official term (Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence) | September 29, 2026 |
| California order keeping AI (Executive Order N-10-26) | September 30, 2026 |
| Legal definition of AI, unchanged | 15 U.S.C. 9401(3) |
| Deadline for a proposed federal SI definition (around November 28, 2026) | 60 days |
| US monthly searches for artificial general intelligence (Google Keyword Planner, read 3 October 2026) | 1M to 10M |
| US monthly searches for super intelligence (same source, 12-month average) | 1K to 10K |
| Signatories of the voluntary White House accord (no penalties) | 7 |
| Google's treatment of .si (not on its generic ccTLD list) | Slovenian country domain |
Order texts read on 1 to 3 October 2026 from whitehouse.gov and gov.ca.gov, Forbes's 30 September report, the BBC's summit coverage, Google Search Central and Google Keyword Planner on 3 October 2026.
What changed, and for whom
On September 29, 2026, President Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to use "Super Intelligence" and "SI" in place of "artificial intelligence" and "AI" in correspondence, websites, reports and policy documents, and to stop acknowledging the old terms. It binds the executive branch only. It does not change the legal definition of AI, which stays at 15 U.S.C. 9401(3), and it exempts past regulations, contracts and grants. Private companies, states and other countries are not covered. Our report on the order and the White House accord has the full text and the signatories.
On September 30, California went the other way. Governor Gavin Newsom signed Executive Order N-10-26, which requires every agency under his authority to keep calling the technology "Artificial Intelligence" and "AI", "notwithstanding any rebranded or different terminology used by the federal government", Forbes reported. His statement: "Super intelligence is clearly not coming from the White House." The same day he signed laws barring California employers from relying on AI to make disciplinary or layoff decisions and requiring notice when AI adoption causes a mass layoff.
So a company selling across the US now faces three vocabularies:
- Federal agencies: SI, by order.
- California state agencies: AI, by order.
- Everyone else: whatever their customers say, which is still AI.
Will the rebrand stick?
Early signs point to a split, not a switch. Nvidia's Jensen Huang has embraced the word and called data centres "super intelligence factories", and Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk have used the term in public, the BBC reported; Musk corrected himself from "AI" to "SI" on camera at the White House. Meta had already named a division Superintelligence Labs. Against that, experts told the BBC the term is unlikely to catch on widely because it normally refers to systems far more advanced than today's, and University of Chicago marketing professor Jean-Pierre Dubé told Newsweek the label "seems premature" and could spark more public distrust than "artificial intelligence". Search behaviour is the tie-breaker: interest in "super intelligence" roughly seven-folded in the week of the order, but the baseline is three orders of magnitude below "artificial intelligence". Our explainer on what super intelligence means covers why the two-word government term and the one-word research term keep colliding.
The decision guide
- Federal proposals, grant applications and agency correspondence: use SI, with AI in brackets on first use. Reviewers now work from documents that say Super Intelligence. Mirror the term so searches inside their systems find you, and keep "AI" in parentheses once so nobody has to guess. Do not rewrite signed contracts; the order exempts them.
- Product names, websites and ads: keep AI. People search for what they know. Renaming "AI receptionist" to "SI receptionist" would move you away from the queries that bring customers, including the ones that reach our own AI receptionist for home services page. Google's ranking systems match the words people search, not federal style guides.
- California public-sector work: use AI, by order. N-10-26 is as binding on state agencies as the federal order is on federal ones.
- Legal and compliance documents: change nothing. The statutory definition of AI did not move, and the federal science adviser has 60 days from September 29 to propose a formal SI definition. Until that lands, "AI" is the term the law uses.
- Add SI to your search and AI-assistant coverage without dropping AI. Add one FAQ ("Is SI the same as AI?") and use both terms in page copy where it reads naturally. AI assistants such as ChatGPT and Claude answer the question in whichever words the user used, so pages that define both get cited for both. That is a small, free piece of AI search optimization.
What not to do
- Do not buy a .si domain for a US brand expecting an SEO lift. .si is Slovenia's country code, and Google treats country-code domains as a strong signal that a site is meant for that country. Our guide to buying a .si domain explains when it does make sense.
- Do not strip "AI" from job titles, case studies or customer-facing documentation. Your customers, your hires and your search traffic all still use it.
- Do not treat the accord as a compliance framework. The White House Accord on Super Intelligence is a voluntary pledge by seven signatories with no penalties. If you need real controls for the AI agents you run, the accord's four layers are a useful template, and our AI automation agency builds them in from day one, but the document itself binds nobody.
A simple rule to remember
Write in the buyer's language, not the president's and not the governor's. For the federal government that is now SI. For California's government it is AI. For the market, it is AI until the search data says otherwise, and today the data does not.
Frequently Asked Questions
In US federal usage, yes. The September 29, 2026 executive order makes Super Intelligence, or SI, the executive branch's term for all AI, with the same legal definition AI had before. In research, superintelligence means a future AI far beyond human ability, which no current system is.
No. The order binds federal agencies only and exempts existing contracts, grants and regulations. Companies, states and other countries can keep saying AI. California has ordered its agencies to keep using AI.
Yes, in new proposals, grant applications and agency correspondence, with AI in brackets on first use. Agency reviewers now work from documents that use Super Intelligence, so mirroring the term helps your documents match theirs.
Executive Order N-10-26, signed on September 30, 2026, requires all California agencies under the governor's authority to keep referring to the technology as Artificial Intelligence and AI regardless of federal terminology.
Not yet. Google's Keyword Planner puts US searches for artificial general intelligence at 1 million to 10 million a month against 1,000 to 10,000 for super intelligence, and the government term shares its letters with the metric system, which muddies the data further.