Product Independently confirmed 3 publishers2 min readPublished Oct 10, 2026, 3:36 AM PDT

Federal agencies must now write 'SI' instead of 'AI'

Trump's September 29 executive order tells federal agencies to write "SI" instead of "AI" in their official documents and on their websites. The order does not bind private firms, but vendors that sell to agencies will meet "SI" throughout the documents they read.

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Photograph accompanying Federal agencies must now write 'SI' instead of 'AI' — Photo: abcnews.com

What happened

The Justice Department has already told its employees to use the new "SI" language in official documents, Fast Company reported this week.
Salesforce renamed its AIForce agent platform to SIForce, chief executive Marc Benioff said Friday, in a move first reported by Business Insider.
Elon Musk had said last Sunday that his SpaceXAI would become SpaceXSI, the first large company to follow the order.
Trump told reporters the "artificial intelligence" label is wrong "because it's not artificial."

Why it matters

decision The order forces a choice on every vendor with "AI" in a product name: adopt the government's term, or keep the name and be ready to defend it.
contradiction A product badged "SI" is claiming it clears the superintelligence bar, and Business Insider noted that renaming a product does not show it does.
precedent No rule requires it, yet companies are already relabeling to match.

The administration is selling the change as image work. At the UN General Assembly, Trump said the word "artificial" makes the technology "sound fake" ^[11], and Fast Company reported the White House hopes a new name eases public backlash to data centers and to the privacy risks of frontier models ^[18]. What the order does is narrower than that pitch. It swaps one word in the communications agencies publish ^[1].

The word it picked already has a fixed meaning. In the industry, "superintelligence" describes systems far more capable than humans at practically everything, which today's products are not ^[4]. So the term means different things in different places. Inside a federal solicitation, "SI" is the government's house style. On a company's own marketing, it describes the product.

Apply that distinction to the "AI" you already own before you change anything. Sort it into three piles: the legal entity name, the product label, and the marketing copy. The entity name is costly to change, and nothing in the order touches it ^[2]; OpenAI has not moved, and Altman said the company will keep using the term anyway: "But we do like we have been talking about super intelligence a lot and we will continue to talk about it" ^[7]. The product label is cosmetic. Salesforce changed the label when Marc Benioff posted, "The era of Super Intelligence is here. AIForce is officially SIForce," and left the company's own name alone ^[14]^[15]. The marketing copy is the pile to think hardest about, because there "SI" describes your product as superintelligent.

The marketing pile is where the politics sits too. Trump wrote on Truth Social that anyone who keeps saying "artificial intelligence" is "the enemy" ^[5]. OpenAI, which still has "AI" in its name, has not acted like one. Altman gave $1 million to Trump's 2025 inauguration fund ^[17], and president Greg Brockman went to the private lunch the day the order was signed and signed the White House's "Accord on Super Intelligence" for the company ^[12].

What to watch

Whether "SI" starts appearing in federal RFP templates and procurement boilerplate, not just on agency websites.
Whether OpenAI, with "AI" in its name, changes course after saying it has no plans to rename.
Whether the Justice Department instruction hardens into a formal compliance rule with consequences for staff.

Clarity's read

What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption20
Hype gap+40
Incentives68
Confidence60

Perspective Coverage

3 publishers

Builder: Builder 20%
Operator: Operator 40%
Investor: Investor 40%

Why these scores

Claim ledger

Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.

[1]
On September 29, President Trump signed an executive order renaming AI as "SI," or superintelligence, and ordered government agencies to comply with the change in their official communications.
ReportedSupported3 sources— create a free account to open them View cited source
[2]
The executive order does not require private companies to adopt the new terminology.
ReportedSupported3 sources— create a free account to open them View cited source
[3]
Elon Musk said last Sunday that his company SpaceXAI would be renamed SpaceXSI.
ReportedSupported3 sources— create a free account to open them View cited source
[4]
"Superintelligence" is broadly understood in the tech industry to mean AI far more capable than humans at practically everything, a bar today's AI systems do not meet.
ReportedSupported3 sources— create a free account to open them View cited source
[5]
Trump wrote on Truth Social that anyone who doesn't use the new name is "the enemy."
ReportedSupported3 sources— create a free account to open them View cited source
[6]
Sam Altman said on a Politico podcast that OpenAI has "no plans" for a name change.
ReportedSupported2 sources— create a free account to open them View cited source
[7]
Altman added, "But we do like we have been talking about super intelligence a lot and we will continue to talk about it."
ReportedSupported2 sources— create a free account to open them View cited source
[8]
The September 29 executive order told federal agencies to make the switch to super intelligence in official documents and on their websites.
ReportedSupported3 sources— create a free account to open them View cited source
[9]
Trump told reporters that the "artificial intelligence" name isn't right for the technology "because it's not artificial."
ReportedSupported2 sources— create a free account to open them View cited source
[10]
Business Insider noted that renaming a product does not show it meets the superintelligence bar.
ReportedSupportedSource: Business Insider3 sources— create a free account to open them View cited source
[11]
Trump said at the UN General Assembly that the change is needed because "artificial" makes the technology "sound fake."
ReportedSupported2 sources— create a free account to open them View cited source
[12]
OpenAI president Greg Brockman attended a private lunch with other tech and AI leaders the day the order was signed, and signed the White House's "Accord on Super Intelligence" on OpenAI's behalf.
ReportedSupported2 sources— create a free account to open them View cited source
[13]
Salesforce is renaming its AIForce agent platform to SIForce, chief executive Marc Benioff said on Friday, as Katherine Li reported for Business Insider.
ReportedSupportedSource: Business Insider2 sources— create a free account to open them View cited source
[14]
Benioff wrote on X, "The era of Super Intelligence is here. AIForce is officially SIForce."
ReportedSupported2 sources— create a free account to open them View cited source
[15]
The Salesforce change covers the agent platform only, not the company's name.
ReportedSupported2 sources— create a free account to open them View cited source
[16]
The Justice Department instructed its employees to use the new "SI" language in official documents, according to reports this week cited by Fast Company.
ReportedSupportedSource: Fast CompanyView cited source
[17]
Altman donated $1 million to Trump's 2025 inauguration fund.
ReportedSupportedView cited source
[18]
Fast Company reported that the White House hopes the name change improves the technology's public image amid backlash to new data centers and to the privacy risks of frontier AI models.
ReportedInsufficientSource: Fast CompanyView cited source

Sources

3 independent publishers whose own reporting we read for this story.

businessinsider.com
1 article · October 9, 2026
Trump's AI rebrand is catching on with Elon Musk and Marc Benioff
fastcompany.com
1 article · October 9, 2026
Trump’s AI rebrand raises an awkward question for OpenAI
thenextweb.com
1 article · October 10, 2026
Salesforce renames AIForce to SIForce as Trump’s AI rebrand spreads

NextConfirmed7 publishersTrump's order tells federal agencies to call AI 'super intelligence'

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Clarity analysis

How the coverage leans and what the record actually supports. Read the methodology

Perspective Coverage

How much of the coverage speaks to builders, operators and investors. It measures emphasis, not whether the story is right.

Builder20%

For people building on these platforms, the news so far is about names. Salesforce's AIForce agent platform is now SIForce, per Benioff's post on X, and the company name stays the same. None of the three outlets reports any change to APIs, SDKs or product behaviour. All three point out that calling today's systems superintelligence does not make them meet the usual definition.

Reality

Evidence, adoption, hype gap, incentives and confidence, each read independently from the current record on the scale shown beneath it. How these are measured.

Evidence62: 0100
Order confirmed, enforcement thin
Fast Company, Business Insider and The Next Web all date the order to September 29 and all say it covers agencies only. Business Insider alone describes its scope in detail, including the "to the extent permitted by law" limit. The Justice Department instruction rests on Fast Company's reference to unnamed reports. The Next Web's Salesforce account is a rewrite of Business Insider's, so that detail has one original reporter.
Adoption20: 0100
One agency, two corporate renames
Uptake so far is one agency and two companies. Salesforce renamed a product and kept its own name. Musk's SpaceXSI change is a stated plan, and none of the outlets reports it as completed. Altman told Politico that OpenAI has "no plans" to rename, and OpenAI, Scale AI, Character AI and Resolve AI did not answer Business Insider.
Hype gap+40: −100 understated0 aligned+100 overstated
Label claims more than the systems do
Business Insider's headline says the rebrand is "catching on" and The Next Web's says it "spreads," on the strength of one product rename and one pledge. The larger gap is in the term itself. All three outlets note that current systems fall short of what superintelligence usually means.
Incentives68: 0100
Political pressure on AI-named firms
Fast Company documents OpenAI's ties to the administration: Altman's $1 million to the 2025 inauguration fund, Brockman at the signing-day lunch and signing the White House accord, and the Brockmans' $25 million to MAGA Inc. last year. It also says Musk's relationship with Trump has recently warmed. Trump's post calling holdouts "THE ENEMY" attaches a political cost to keeping the old term.
Confidence60: 0100
Firm on the order, soft on its reach
What the order says and whom it covers is well established. How far it reaches inside government is less clear, because the only enforcement report is second-hand. Fast Company's view that the rename is about repairing the technology's image is its own reading, and no White House official is quoted on it.

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