Tech CEOs keep using AI as Trump’s “super intelligence” label spreads

President Donald Trump’s push to replace “AI” with “super intelligence” has not produced a uniform change in tech’s vocabulary. CNBC’s October 30 analysis found Musk and Zuckerberg using his preferred language on earnings calls, while Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet’s CEOs continued saying AI. Even within individual companies, the two labels coexist.

Earnings calls retain the old name

On Meta’s October 21 earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg emphasized the company’s “goal of delivering personal superintelligence to everyone.” That wording aligns with Trump’s preferred term, but Meta’s use predates the president’s September directive: the company created Meta Superintelligence Labs last year. Zuckerberg’s statement therefore does not, by itself, establish a response to Trump.

Elon Musk used both abbreviations in a single remark on Tesla’s third-quarter call. Discussing humanoid robots, he said: “Some of them look very impressive, but they’re not really using any kind of advanced AI or SI.” The statement adds SI to the vocabulary without removing AI from it.

Other executives kept the familiar acronym prominent in their quarterly updates. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy used AI well over a dozen times in his introductory remarks on Thursday. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said a day earlier that one of the company’s three priorities was “designing AI to empower people.”

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai also used AI within seconds of beginning his earnings commentary, saying the company’s “AI investments are driving increased usage and overall user growth.” Across those three calls, the old label remained part of how executives explained their businesses to investors, rather than disappearing in favor of SI.

For Microsoft, the central question as we enter this Super Intelligence era is not just how big the opportunity becomes, but how we deliver the real-world outcomes that every country, community, and company demands and deserves

Satya Nadella, in Microsoft’s annual-report letter to shareholders, quoted by CNBC

Microsoft uses both vocabularies

Microsoft illustrates why earnings-call wording is not a complete measure of corporate adoption. Its annual report, filed the previous week, contained eight mentions of super intelligence, CNBC counted. Nadella’s shareholder letter placed the phrase near the top, even though his subsequent earnings-call remarks continued to use AI.

IBM’s Arvind Krishna likewise used both labels on his company’s call. He credited innovation in hybrid infrastructure and super intelligence with improving business performance, while describing IBM as a “software-led hybrid cloud and AI platform company.” Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan used super intelligence differently: he attributed the chip industry’s supply shortage to “unprecedented demand” for it.

The order governs government language

Trump’s September 29 executive order sets requirements for executive departments and agencies, not corporate earnings calls. It directs them to substitute “Super Intelligence” and “SI” in official correspondence, public communications, websites, reports, policy documents and other non-statutory materials. That instruction applies “to the maximum extent permitted by law,” a qualification built into the directive.

• Existing records need not be rewritten: the order exempts previously issued regulations, presidential actions, contracts, grants and other historical documents from mandatory alteration.
• The legal meaning initially stays the same: unless otherwise provided by law, SI covers the technologies and systems already encompassed by the existing statutory definition of artificial intelligence.

A possible definition change is a separate, unfinished step. The order gives the president’s science and technology assistant 60 days to submit proposed legislative language. That proposal must assess whether a federal SI definition should modify, expand or supersede the statutory AI definition. For now, the order’s substitution uses an existing legal category rather than establishing a new level of technical capability.