Key Takeaways
- President Trump issued two executive orders on September 29 2026: one renaming “Artificial Intelligence” to “Super Intelligence” (SI) and another directing the GSA to launch America.gov as a unified portal for federal services.
- The White House Accord on Super Intelligence, signed by the CEOs of six major AI firms, outlines a voluntary four‑layer framework of internal controls, internal oversight teams, external auditors, and independent board committees for frontier AI development.
- All three actions reinforce the administration’s broader AI strategy: promote innovation, resist mandatory regulation, and rely on industry self‑governance.
- The terminology shift does not alter the legal definition of the technology; it is a symbolic framing move that agencies must adopt in official communications, while Congress, courts, states, and the private sector remain free to use the old term.
- America.gov is intended to be a “better option” for accessing federal services, preserving existing access channels and emphasizing privacy through data minimization and secure authentication, though its privacy commitments are non‑enforceable as written.
- The Accord contains no enforcement mechanism, timeline, or reporting requirement; its effectiveness will depend on company compliance, transparency, and voluntary verification.
Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence
On September 29 2026 President Trump signed an executive order titled Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence that mandates all executive‑branch departments and agencies to replace the terms “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI” with “Super Intelligence” and “SI” in every official communication, website, report, and policy document. The order explicitly states that it does not require changes to previously issued regulations, contracts, grants, or historical documents. As the Benton Institute notes, “beginning with this article, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society will follow the federal government’s new usage and refer to these technologies as ‘Super Intelligence’ or ‘SI’ where the Administration does so.”
What Changes and What Doesn’t
Section 3(a) of the order provides the operative definition: “Super Intelligence” and “SI” mean the technologies and systems already covered by the term “artificial intelligence” as defined in 15 U.S.C. § 9401(3). That definition describes a machine‑based system that, for human‑defined objectives, can make predictions, recommendations or decisions influencing real or virtual environments, perceive environments, abstract perceptions into models, and use model inference to formulate options. The order leaves the statutory definition untouched; only the label changes.
What Comes Next
Within 60 days (by roughly November 28, 2026) the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology must submit to Congress proposed legislative language to establish a formal federal definition of “Super Intelligence.” The proposal must evaluate whether the new definition should modify or expand the existing AI statute and identify any additional executive actions needed for implementation. Importantly, the order declares that the Administration “will not acknowledge the usage of ‘Artificial Intelligence’ and ‘AI’ in any applicable setting,” a phrasing that leaves open questions about how agencies will treat legacy terminology in practice.
Why the Administration Says This Matters
The order’s preamble argues that today’s frontier SI systems “do much more than imitate or automate discrete aspects of human intelligence” and instead “amplify human ingenuity and unlock new forms of creativity.” It contends that the 70‑year‑old term “Artificial Intelligence” no longer captures what these technologies actually do. By retiring the old label, the administration seeks to signal a symbolic rupture from the past, emphasizing transformative capability over mechanical imitation. Whether “Super Intelligence” gains traction beyond the executive branch will depend on voluntary adoption by Congress, the courts, industry, and the public—none of which the order can compel.
Streamlining Access to Government Services Through America.gov
The second executive order, Streamlining Access to Government Services Through America.gov, directs the General Services Administration (GSA) to establish and operate America.gov as a single, secure digital front door for federal services. The White House Fact Sheet accompanying the order notes that the platform was already live at signing, allowing users to ask questions and receive answers, with transactional services such as passport renewal and Medicare enrollment slated for later in 2026.
Covered Services
The order defines “covered services” as public‑facing federal services that serve more than 100,000 users in a 12‑month period and can be accessed or applied for online. Tax filing services handled by the IRS and services provided by the Department of War and elements of the Intelligence Community are explicitly excluded. The Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) may add or remove services from this category by memorandum.
What Agencies Must Do
Federal agency heads must identify their covered services, integrate them with America.gov in a secure, privacy‑preserving manner, connect them to Login.gov (the existing federal single‑sign‑on system), and supply GSA and OMB with ongoing usage and performance data. OMB is required to issue implementation guidance to agencies within 90 days (by approximately December 28, 2026).
Privacy Commitments
The order’s policy section affirms that America.gov will preserve each agency’s custody and control of its own records and statutory responsibilities, and that unifying access “does not create a centralized Federal system of records concerning the American people.” It commits to protecting personal information through data minimization, secure authentication, auditable authorization, and disclosure practices consistent with applicable law. Crucially, Section 6(c) states that the order “does not create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party.” This standard boilerplate means the privacy commitments are policy statements, not enforceable legal rights; compliance will rely on agency adherence to OMB guidance and existing statutes such as the Privacy Act of 1974.
The White House Accord on Super Intelligence
The third action is not an executive order but a signed document: the White House Accord on Super Intelligence — Joint Commitment on Frontier Responsibilities. President Trump signed the Accord alongside the chief executives of six major AI companies: Sundar Pichai (Google), Dario Amodei (Anthropic), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), Greg Brockman (OpenAI), Elon Musk (XAI), and Jensen Huang (Nvidia).
The Accord declares that “every company is responsible for developing its own technology safely and in a way that builds trust with customers and the public.” It commits each signatory to implement four layers of controls and audits:
- Robust internal controls to monitor model capabilities and alignment during training and deployment, covering cybersecurity, biosecurity, and chemical threats, and to prevent unintended hacking or access to technical systems.
- An empowered internal team to ensure those controls, monitoring, and detection mechanisms operate as intended and to remediate issues.
- An independent external auditor or evaluator to conduct independent assessments of the controls’ effectiveness.
- An independent committee of the company’s board of directors to oversee reports from internal and external auditors and to ensure remediation.
The Accord also states that participating companies will meet regularly to establish standards and best practices to improve system safety. Its closing paragraph observes, “Over time, it may make sense to codify these steps into laws or regulations. Regardless of whether this is required of companies, we believe that implementing these controls and audits is critical to ensuring a safe future for everyone, and each of our companies are committed to doing this.”
How This Week’s Actions Fit the Administration’s AI Strategy
Together, the three September 29 actions extend the administration’s two‑year‑old AI strategy: favor speed and innovation, resist regulatory friction, and achieve safety through voluntary industry collaboration rather than government mandate. The terminology shift to “Super Intelligence” reframes the debate, emphasizing transformative power over imitation. America.gov operationalizes the vision of a streamlined, citizen‑centric government interface, raising practical questions about accuracy, accountability, and recourse when SI‑driven answers are erroneous. The Accord offers the most explicit statement yet of the preferred governance model—companies setting their own standards, meeting to refine them, with the government acting as convener and signatory rather than regulator. As the Accord itself acknowledges, codification into law remains a possible future contingency, but for now the framework relies on compliance, transparency, and voluntary verification.
All three documents were released on September 29, 2026. The EO on Super Intelligence terminology and the EO on America.gov are available on the White House website. The White House Accord on Super Intelligence was reported by Forbes on September 30, 2026. Citations in this article refer to sections of the relevant EOs as indicated.
https://www.benton.org/blog/new-name-new-platform-and-voluntary-industry-accord-what-you-used-call-ai
