Trump's Super Intelligence Executive Order 14434 Explained

Trump's Super Intelligence order tells federal agencies to say "Super Intelligence" (SI) instead of "Artificial Intelligence" (AI) in their own documents. At Layer3Labs, we build AI agents for business workflows, so we read orders like this one for what they change in the documents and contracts our clients use.

President Donald J. Trump signed Executive Order 14434, "Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence," on September 29, 2026.

The order leaves existing federal regulations, contracts, and grants untouched. It gives the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology 60 days to propose legislative language for a legal definition of SI.

What Executive Order 14434 Changes and What It Leaves Alone

Executive Order 14434 changes the words federal agencies use in their own documents, websites, and public communications. It does not alter existing regulations, contracts, or grants.

President Trump signed the order on Tuesday, September 29, 2026. Section 1 says the executive branch "shall use the terms 'Super Intelligence' and 'SI' in place of 'Artificial Intelligence' and 'AI'" to the maximum extent permitted by law. It also says the executive branch "will not acknowledge the usage of 'Artificial Intelligence' and 'AI' in any applicable setting."

Section 2(a) restricts this naming convention to official correspondence, public communications, websites, reports, policy documents, and other non-statutory documents within the executive branch. Section 2(b) explicitly provides that nothing in this section requires the alteration of previously issued regulations, Presidential actions, contracts, grants, or other historical documents.

Section 4 says the order does not affect agency authority or Office of Management and Budget (OMB) functions. It creates no enforceable right or benefit.

• Federal agencies must adopt Super Intelligence and SI across internal policy documents, websites, reports, and public communications.
• The Assistant to the President for Science and Technology has 60 days to submit proposed legislative language for a federal definition of SI.
• Existing federal contracts, grants, and previously issued regulations need no changes.
• Private commercial companies and state governments face no naming mandates or operational restrictions under the directive.
• The legal meaning does not change: SI is defined as the existing statutory AI definition at 15 U.S.C. 9401(3).

How Executive Order 14434 Defines Super Intelligence

Under Section 3(a) of Executive Order 14434, the legal definition of Super Intelligence is identical to the existing statutory definition of artificial intelligence found in federal law.

The directive anchors the term directly to Section 9401(3) of Title 15 of the United States Code, enacted under the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act of 2020. That statute defines artificial intelligence as a machine-based system that can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations or decisions influencing real or virtual environments.

The statutory text notes that these systems use machine and human-based inputs to perceive environments, abstract perceptions into models, and use model inference to formulate options. Because Executive Order 14434 incorporates this exact language, it introduces no novel technical criteria into federal administrative law.

The order does not define Super Intelligence as artificial general intelligence (AGI) or artificial superintelligence, and neither term appears in it. For the research meaning of the word, see what superintelligence actually means. For the two labels side by side, see AI vs SI.

White House Rationale for the Terminology Rebranding

The White House framed the transition from AI to SI as a recognition of rapid technological progress in frontier computing capabilities.

According to the text of the directive, Section 1 states that the capabilities of today's frontier systems do much more than imitate or automate discrete aspects of human intelligence. The administration asserted that the term Super Intelligence more appropriately captures the promise, potential, and rapidly advancing capabilities of these technologies.

An accompanying White House fact sheet says the United States has "led the world in its development and deployment for over 70 years," referring to AI. Fox Business reported that at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) the week before, President Trump said: "Whoever wins AI, you have to remember this, and now I say whoever wins SI, whoever wins superintelligence, wins."

Fox Business also reported that President Trump has opposed imposing formal guardrails on SI technologies.

Sixty-Day Legislative Proposal Process for Federal Definitions

Section 3(b) of Executive Order 14434 gives the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology (APST) 60 days to submit proposed legislative language defining Super Intelligence. Only Congress can change the statute.

The APST may consult agency heads as the APST sees fit. Sixty days from September 29, 2026 falls in late November 2026, though the order specifies 60 days rather than a calendar date.

The executive order specifies three core areas that the APST proposal must address during the drafting process.

• Evaluating whether a new statutory definition of Super Intelligence should modify, expand upon, or supersede the existing definition under Title 15.
• Drafting conforming statutory amendments to update existing references to artificial intelligence across the United States Code.
• Formulating recommendations for further executive action.

Industry Commitments Under the White House Accord on Super Intelligence

A separate document, which Fox Business calls the White House Accord on Super Intelligence, was signed at the end of a White House roundtable with tech executives on September 29, 2026.

Fox Business reported that President Trump described the accord as morally binding, noting that participating technology executives almost viewed the document as a separate kind of constitution. House Speaker Mike Johnson described "commitments that are voluntary on behalf of the industry." He called the accord "a statement of principles" and "a statement of standards," with "robust internal controls and layers of internal and external review."

Mark Zuckerberg posted that "the leaders of every major American lab" committed to "implementing robust internal controls and multiple layers of audits and reviews," calling it a "positive step." However, neither the complete text of the accord nor the official roster of signatories has been published by the White House as of October 2026.

Practical Compliance Implications for Commercial Contractors and Vendors

Contractors and vendors do not need to rewrite existing contracts or grants, or rename their own products.

Section 2(b) says nothing in that section requires altering previously issued contracts, grants, or regulations. If you sell to federal agencies, expect to see SI in agency correspondence, websites, and new documents.

The order binds no private company. For the AI laws that do apply to businesses, see our AI compliance guide and the AI law compliance tracker.

• Active federal procurement contracts and grant documentation require zero administrative modifications under Section 2(b).
• Commercial marketing materials, software product names, and private internal policies remain entirely unaffected by the executive directive.
• New agency documents may say SI, but the order sets no rule for what vendors write.

Integration with Preceding Federal Executive Actions

The fact sheet for Executive Order 14434 lists earlier federal AI actions from 2025 and 2026.

The order says nothing about the June 2, 2026 executive order and does not amend or revoke it. See our guide to the AI executive order. The official fact sheet connects the Super Intelligence initiative to the July 2025 AI Action Plan, detailed in our breakdown of the Trump AI Action Plan.

The administration also linked the rebranding to more than $5 billion in federal funding allocated toward the Genesis Mission and referenced a March 2026 National Super Intelligence Policy Framework. State AI laws are separate from this order, and our state AI laws by state directory lists them.

Mark late November 2026 on your calendar, when the 60-day window for the proposed legal definition of Super Intelligence closes.