On September 22, 2026, President Trump told the UN General Assembly that the United States would begin calling artificial intelligence "Super Intelligence" instead. Within a day, legal and compliance teams started asking the same question: do we now have to rewrite "AI" in our contracts, policies and filings?
Short answer: no document changes are required today
No. As of September 23, 2026, nothing in U.S. or international law requires a company to change the term "artificial intelligence" in contracts, internal policies, securities filings or product names. The statement covered U.S. government documents, and it has not yet been converted into any binding instrument.
We checked the primary record directly. A full-text search of the Federal Register for "super intelligence" returns zero documents as of September 23, 2026 — no executive order, no proposed rule, no notice. That is a check any compliance officer can repeat in thirty seconds, and it is the fastest way to close the question internally.
What follows is general information for planning purposes, not legal advice. For a specific contract or disclosure, talk to your counsel. For the announcement itself — what was said and what remains undecided — see our summary of the UN speech renaming AI to SI and what it changes.
Three reasons the legal terminology has not moved
1. The stated scope is U.S. government documents
The White House release records the line this way:
The United States totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme of control for the Artificial Intelligence being spoken of so much now — hereinafter officially called "Super Intelligence."
"Hereinafter officially called" is a naming convention for the speaker's own documents. In the speech itself, the extension beyond the U.S. was framed as a hope — "all of United States documents and hopefully the world's" — not as a requirement. Private contracts between private parties are untouched.
2. "Artificial intelligence" is defined by statute, not by preference
This is the part most commentary missed. Executive Order 14179 (January 23, 2025), the administration's own AI order, states in Section 3 that "artificial intelligence" or "AI" has the meaning set forth in 15 U.S.C. § 9401(3). That definition sits in statute — Division E of Pub. L. 116-283, enacted in 2021 — and changing it requires Congress, not a speech.
Practical consequence: every federal regulation, agency policy and procurement clause that cross-references the statutory definition still says "artificial intelligence," and will keep saying it until the statute is amended. If your contract's definitions article points at 15 U.S.C. § 9401(3), it is already future-proof.
3. No binding instrument exists yet
An executive order would appear in the Federal Register. A procurement change would surface as a FAR case or an agency class deviation. Neither has happened. Until one does, a compliance program that changes terminology is acting on a press cycle rather than on a legal obligation.
Document-by-document checklist
Here is the same analysis in the form legal teams actually circulate — what to change, and what to do instead of changing it.
Document type | Change required? | What to do instead |
|---|---|---|
Commercial contracts and MSAs | No | Confirm the definitions article defines "AI" expressly or by statutory reference. If it does, external naming is irrelevant |
Internal AI use policy / acceptable use | No | At the next scheduled revision, add one parenthetical: "AI (also referred to as Super Intelligence or SI)" |
SEC filings, earnings materials, investor decks | No | Disclosure benefits from year-over-year consistency. Changing a defined term mid-stream makes comparison harder, not clearer |
Job postings and role titles | No | Candidate search volume still sits on "AI." Renaming roles reduces applicant reach |
Press releases and marketing site | No | If you use SI, spell out "Super Intelligence (SI)" on first use and state its relationship to AI in one sentence |
Product and feature names, trademarks | No (actively discouraged) | Renaming triggers trademark, domain and customer-communication costs. Do not tie product names to political naming cycles |
Privacy notices and DPAs | No | These typically track GDPR or the EU AI Act, which use their own defined terms. Leave them aligned to the regulation |
Federal proposals, RFP responses, contract deliverables | Possibly, later — undetermined | Mirror the terminology in the contracting officer's solicitation. Do not move first |
Only the last row is genuinely open. Everything above it can be closed today with a one-paragraph internal note.
Federal procurement: the one place this could change
If a rename ever becomes operative, it will show up in solicitations before it shows up anywhere else — and it will be inconsistent for a while, because agencies adopt terminology at different speeds. Three things are worth planning for, all of them cheap:
- Read the solicitation's definitions, not the headline. If a solicitation uses "SI" without defining it, ask the contracting officer in writing during the Q&A period. That question costs nothing and creates a record.
- Do not rename deliverables mid-contract. A deliverable named in the contract keeps its contractual name. Changing it in your own documents creates a mismatch in acceptance review.
- Expect the statutory definition to survive. Even if agencies adopt "SI" as a label, the substantive scope will almost certainly still be the 15 U.S.C. § 9401(3) definition, because that is what the regulations cite.
Four practical traps
Trap 1: running a global find-and-replace
The most expensive mistake available here. Replacing "AI" with "SI" across a document set also rewrites "AI model," "AI-assisted," "generative AI" and, in some fonts and encodings, fragments inside unrelated words. It also will not reach headers, embedded images, or PDFs already executed — producing a document set where terminology varies by version. That is the hardest state to explain in an audit or a dispute.
Trap 2: editing the body while ignoring the definitions article
If a contract defines "AI" expressly, the definition governs and the outside world's naming is irrelevant. The documents genuinely at risk are the ones that use "AI" with no definition at all — an internal policy saying "employees may not use AI tools," for example. The problem there was never the name; it was undefined scope. Use this news as the prompt to add the definition you were missing.
Trap 3: importing the academic meaning by accident
In research usage, "superintelligence" has a specific and much narrower meaning — following Nick Bostrom's 2014 book, an intellect that greatly exceeds human cognitive performance across virtually all domains. Current commercial systems are not that. Drop "Super Intelligence" into a contract without a definition and you risk a counterparty arguing the clause covers only hypothetical future systems. The distinctions are worth knowing: see the difference between AGI, ASI and SI in one table.
Trap 4: assuming "SI" reads cleanly everywhere
It does not. In technical writing, SI is the International System of Units. In Japan — a major market for many U.S. vendors — "SI" has meant systems integration for decades, and "SIer" is the standard word for an IT services firm. A global policy that says "SI usage must be logged" will be read as something else entirely by an offshore delivery team. We cover that collision in why SI collides with SIer and SI units.
If your team is working through internal AI rules and wants a second pair of eyes on how the policy is written — not just the naming, but whether the scope holds up — that is something Mihata helps companies with through monthly advisory sessions. Apologies for the interruption mid-article; we mention it only because this is exactly the kind of review that tends to get postponed.
A 30-minute action plan
Deciding not to change something is still a decision, and it should be written down. Three steps close this out:
- Circulate a three-line position. "The statement covers U.S. government documents. We are not changing terminology in contracts, policies or filings. Federal proposals and any counterparty drafts using SI will be reviewed individually." This stops the inbound questions.
- Add one glossary line. "AI (artificial intelligence) — also referred to as Super Intelligence, SI, or superintelligence." It makes your own document search work across both terms.
- Flag undefined uses. Scan contract templates and the AI use policy for "AI" used without a definition, and queue those for the next revision cycle.
Equally worth stating: what not to do. No contract amendments, no emergency policy revisions, no product renames, no restatement of prior filings. None of those has a legal basis right now, and none of that spend is recoverable.
Bottom line
A government said it would use a different word in its own documents. The statutory definition at 15 U.S.C. § 9401(3) is unchanged, the Federal Register shows zero matching documents as of September 23, 2026, and no other jurisdiction has followed. Write down that you reviewed it and decided not to act, add a glossary line, and revisit only if a solicitation or a counterparty draft forces the question. If you want the terminology itself explained in plain language, what "Super Intelligence" actually means covers it.
If you would like help reviewing how AI is defined and governed in your own documents and workflows, we are happy to talk it through. No hard sell — just tell us what you are unsure about.
FAQ
Do we have to change the word AI in our contracts?
No. As of September 23, 2026 there is no legal requirement to change the term. The statement applied to U.S. government documents and has not been issued as an executive order, rule or regulation.
Has an executive order been signed on this?
Not as of September 23, 2026. A full-text search of the Federal Register for 'super intelligence' returns zero documents, which is the fastest way to verify the current status.
Does the statutory definition of artificial intelligence change?
No. Executive Order 14179 defines AI by reference to 15 U.S.C. 9401(3), a definition enacted by Congress in 2021. Amending it would require legislation.
What should we do if a counterparty's draft says 'super intelligence'?
Read the definitions article first. If the term is undefined, add a line stating that Super Intelligence or SI has the same meaning as artificial intelligence as defined in 15 U.S.C. 9401(3), so the scope is fixed.
Should we update our internal AI use policy now?
No emergency revision is needed. At the next scheduled revision, add a parenthetical noting that AI may also be referred to as Super Intelligence or SI, and check that the policy defines its scope rather than relying on the label.