Here’s who is falling in line for Trump’s “Super Intelligence” loyalty test

At the end of September, President Trump ordered federal agencies to replace "artificial intelligence" with "Super Intelligence." MIT Technology Review checked who has followed.

Agencies are swapping the term into websites and solicitations, including an ICE request for "SI-powered" surveillance at detention facilities. Adoption is patchy even inside government. Among tech leaders, CNBC's earnings call analysis found only Zuckerberg and Musk using it consistently, and Meta already said superintelligence. The president has also criticized the Wall Street Journal for not using it and suggested a broader ban is coming.

AI is one of the few big issues where Americans' views don't yet split cleanly along party lines. That's worth protecting.

We'll be direct about our own usage: we're going to keep saying AI. Not as a political statement, but because it's the accurate term for what exists today. Calling current systems superintelligent overstates what they can do. That inflates expectations and blurs the safety debate. When the word "superintelligence" also names a hypothetical future risk, using it for today's chatbots makes both conversations harder.

The reporting's bigger worry is ours too. Past renamings became loyalty signals, and the administration barred the AP from some White House events over one of them. If the same thing happens here, the vocabulary someone uses about AI will signal their politics before they've said anything about the technology. That's a bad outcome for a subject where people genuinely disagree in ways that cut across parties, on jobs, mental health, warfare and more.

There's a practical cost as well. Agency leaders are drafting a new legislative definition of "Super Intelligence." Definitions in law matter. A definition written to fit a brand, rather than the technology, could shape procurement, oversight and future rules in ways nobody intended.

Tech executives face a choice here, and most are hedging. Microsoft's shareholder letter nods to a "Super Intelligence era" while its executives say AI on calls. That hedging tells us companies see the political cost of either answer.

On the eve of the midterms, with Americans telling pollsters AI matters to their votes, the conversation needs clarity, not a password.

The order followed a poll on X in which the president offered alternatives including "Extreme Intelligence" and "Supreme Intelligence." The same day, six tech leaders signed a nonbinding White House Accord on Super Intelligence. The order does not apply to previously issued regulations or documents.