DOJ Tells Staff to Replace “AI” With “Super Intelligence,” Including in Court When Appropriate

Justice Department lawyers have been instructed to replace “AI” with “Super Intelligence” in official communications, including court filings “when appropriate.” Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter sent the direction to employees on October 6, 2026, in a memo reviewed by Bloomberg Law, bringing President Donald Trump’s preferred wording into the department’s legal work.

The court-filing provision is conditional: “when appropriate” is not an instruction to substitute the new term in every filing. That wording distinguishes the memo’s general direction on official communications from its application to documents attorneys submit to courts. Both fall within McCotter’s instruction, but the latter carries an express qualification.

The instruction also supplies a replacement abbreviation. NBC News reported that employees were told to call artificial intelligence “super intelligence,” or “SI,” citing four people familiar with the matter. Its account identified the memo’s title as “Super Intelligence.” The terminology change therefore reaches the short form used to refer to the technology, not just its full name.

The presidential order behind the memo

McCotter cited Trump’s September 29, 2026 executive order, which directs federal agencies to use “Super Intelligence” in their government duties “to the maximum extent permitted by law.” The order applies to all other federal departments as well as DOJ, making the policy government-wide rather than a Justice Department naming decision. Its legal limit governs how far agencies must take the terminology change.

terminology used by the Federal Government should reflect the transformative capabilities of extraordinary technologies being pioneered by American innovators

President Trump’s executive order, quoted by McCotter in the memo reviewed by Bloomberg Law

Bloomberg Law describes the executive order as part of Trump’s effort to counter increasingly negative public perceptions of artificial intelligence. The quoted language is the administration’s stated case for its choice of words, not an independently verified assessment of technological capabilities. McCotter used that presidential rationale to explain the department’s terminology policy.