President Trump told the United Nations General Assembly on September 22, 2026, that the U.S. government will officially rename "artificial intelligence" to "super intelligence" in all federal documents, arguing that the word "artificial" makes the technology "sound fake" when it is "actually amazing."

Trump Tells UN: AI Should Be Called "Super Intelligence"

In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, President Donald Trump announced that the United States would stop using the term "artificial intelligence" in official government documents, replacing it with "super intelligence." The president framed the change as a matter of accuracy rather than branding, telling world leaders that the existing name does the technology a disservice.

Trump argued that "the use of the word artificial makes intelligence sound fake," insisting "it is not fake. It's actually amazing. But we have to be careful. In fact, it is exactly the opposite of what it purports." He went on to declare the shift official policy going forward. "From this point forward, all of United States documents and hopefully the world's will be changed to use the much more accurate term super as opposed to artificial," he told the assembly, adding, "In other words, welcome to the new world of super intelligence — SI."

Trump seemed to acknowledge the rebrand might not catch on everywhere, joking with the audience before moving on. "Let's see if that goes. It sounds much better. It is much better, and it's much more accurate. Let's see if I have any power. Maybe I do and maybe I don't. We're gonna find out real soon," he said. 

A Term Already in Use — With a Different Meaning

The announcement immediately drew attention because "superintelligence" is not a new or empty phrase in the AI world — it already has a specific, widely used meaning that is distinct from "artificial intelligence" as a category. Within AI research, superintelligence typically refers to a hypothetical system that surpasses human cognitive ability across virtually every domain, a threshold well beyond today's AI tools. As one report on the speech noted, that term "is already defined as a form of artificial intelligence that exceeds human intelligence," and is "both the ultimate goal of many frontier AI firms and the greatest worry among those warning about its threat to humanity."

In other words, Trump's proposed rename doesn't just swap one label for a synonym — it borrows a term that AI safety researchers use to describe a future, far more powerful class of systems, and applies it to AI broadly, including the chatbots, image generators, and everyday tools already in wide use.

The timing added another layer to the story. Trump's remarks came amid spiking fears about the technology after a former Anthropic researcher warned that AI could soon destroy humanity. That warning had been circulating in AI policy circles in the days before the UN speech, making the president's choice to lean into "super intelligence" — rather than distance the government from a loaded term — notable to observers tracking the AI safety debate. 

Crowdsourcing the New Name

The renaming push wasn't entirely spontaneous. In the run-up to the UN address, Trump had floated the idea publicly and opened it up to a vote on social media, offering a menu of alternatives rather than settling on one term outright. According to reporting on the announcement, in a social media survey he gave the new-name options as superior intelligence (SI), extreme intelligence (EI) or supreme intelligence (SI), including an option for X and Truth Social users to vote on which name they preferred. 

That detail underscores that "super intelligence" wasn't necessarily the only contender heading into the speech — it was simply the one that ultimately made it into Trump's UN remarks and, by his account, into official U.S. government usage from here on out.

Dismissing AI Risk as a "Hoax"

Beyond the naming exercise, Trump used the moment to push back on the broader wave of concern about AI's risks, comparing it to past environmental warnings he has long been skeptical of. Trump dismissed fears about artificial intelligence as a "hoax," brushing aside warnings from tech experts that the technology is growing faster than tech companies understand.

He drew a direct parallel to climate change rhetoric, telling the assembly: "The very same people who said we'd all be dead in 12 years because of global warming — a name since reborn to climate change — because the planet was cooling, not warming and nobody was dead." The comparison framed AI-risk warnings, in Trump's telling, as part of a broader pattern of what he characterized as overblown doomsday predictions rather than credible technical concerns. 

This part of the speech sits somewhat in tension with the administration's stated reason for the rename. If "artificial" undersells how powerful the technology already is, as Trump argued, that would seem to align with — not contradict — the concerns raised by researchers warning about AI capabilities outpacing safety understanding. Critics of the speech have pointed to that apparent contradiction: elevating AI's perceived power with a more imposing name while simultaneously downplaying the risks that come with that power.

Why the Rename Matters — and Why It Might Not Stick

Renaming a government's technical vocabulary is not merely symbolic; agencies often use defined terms in regulations, procurement rules, and funding language, and changing them can ripple through how policy is written and interpreted. Trump's directive, as described in his speech, would apply to "all of United States documents," suggesting an intent for the change to extend across federal agencies rather than remain a rhetorical flourish confined to speeches.

That said, several practical hurdles stand between the announcement and any lasting shift in terminology:

  • International adoption is unlikely to follow automatically. Trump expressed hope that "the world's" documents would adopt the new term too, but the UN, foreign governments, standards bodies, and international AI governance frameworks are under no obligation to follow a unilateral U.S. naming change.
  • Industry and academic usage is deeply entrenched. "Artificial intelligence" has been the standard term in computer science literature, corporate branding, and public discourse for decades — Apple, Google, Microsoft, and virtually every major AI lab market their products as "AI," and that is unlikely to change based on a U.S. government style preference.
  • The term collision with existing AI-safety usage could cause confusion. Because "superintelligence" already denotes a specific, more advanced hypothetical stage of AI development within the research community, using it interchangeably with everyday AI tools risks muddying already-contentious public conversations about AI capability and risk.

Reactions and What Comes Next

News outlets covering the speech treated the announcement with a mix of straight reporting and skepticism about its practical effect, with several noting the irony of adopting AI-safety terminology while rejecting AI-safety warnings in the same address. Whether the directive translates into an actual, enforced change across federal websites, regulations, and agency communications remains to be seen — and whether "SI" gains any real traction outside government documents, let alone globally, is even less certain given how firmly "AI" is embedded in commercial and academic use.

For now, the episode adds another chapter to Trump's long-running approach to AI policy, which has combined aggressive pushes on AI infrastructure and deregulation with public statements that downplay the technology's risks. The UNGA remarks fit that pattern: a symbolic embrace of AI's power through rebranding, paired with a dismissal of the very warnings that rebranding seems to echo.

This article is based on reporting as of September 22, 2026. Details of the federal rename's implementation, and any international response, may develop in the days ahead.