Within two weeks, the word superintelligence moved from academic books into the news. In late September, US President Donald Trump used it in a speech at the UN, and a week later the White House prescribed it to federal agencies by executive order. People who hear it now often don’t know whether it means a machine smarter than humans or a new name for the chat window they already know. It’s both, depending on who’s talking.
Since late September, clients have been asking me about it in consultations over and over. A business owner reads a headline and asks whether the assistant their company uses has suddenly become something else. It hasn’t. But the same word now carries two meanings, and in a conversation you can’t tell which one was meant until you ask.
What is superintelligence?
Superintelligence is an expert term for an intelligence that is much smarter than the best humans in practically every field. That’s how philosopher Nick Bostrom defined it in 1998, and in 2014 he built his book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies around it.
Superintelligence (Bostrom’s definition)
An intellect that is much smarter than the best human brains in practically every field, including scientific creativity, general wisdom, and social skills. The key word is “every.” Excelling in one discipline doesn’t make something a superintelligence. According to Bostrom, a company or a scientific community isn’t one either, even though it can accomplish more than an individual.
The bar is set high on purpose. A calculator computes faster than any mathematician, yet nobody would call it a superintelligence.
Superintelligence doesn’t exist yet. If you read about it in the news today, you’re reading either about a goal the big AI companies want to reach or about a new official word for technology you’ve been using for a long time.
Why today’s AI isn’t superintelligence
Today’s models are fast and capable at individual pieces of work, but they’re far from Bostrom’s bar. Outside those pieces, they fail and make mistakes.
Narrow AI
A system that handles one task or a narrow set of tasks: writing text, transcribing a call, sorting email. Everything businesses actually use today belongs here. It works fast, but outside its task it has no judgment you could rely on.
I see it in the tools I have open every day. One writes excellent Czech, another transcribes meetings, a third draws. None of them can do everything, and with each one I count on it making mistakes. Even the choice between Claude and ChatGPT comes down to the type of work today, because neither of them outperforms people at everything.
Even the newest ones aren’t error-free. According to Al Jazeera on September 29, 2026, OpenAI canceled the release of its GPT-6.1 Astra model because it failed to meet the company’s safety standards in internal testing. That’s why I build systems where AI checks its own work before a person sees it. And narrow AI is still enough to take an hour a day of retyping and sorting off people’s plates.
How the word made it all the way to the White House
The word was first claimed by companies that declared superintelligence their own goal. In September 2024, OpenAI’s Sam Altman wrote that it could arrive “in a few thousand days.” In 2024, Ilya Sutskever co-founded the company Safe Superintelligence, and in June 2025 Meta merged its AI teams into Meta Superintelligence Labs. Since September 2026, the US government has used it too:
- September 22: In a speech to the UN General Assembly, Donald Trump said that artificial intelligence should now be called superintelligence. He also said that whoever wins superintelligence wins.
- September 29: Executive Order 14434 was issued. Federal agencies are to write “Super Intelligence” and “SI” instead of “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI” in correspondence, on websites, and in documents that aren’t law.
- October 4: The President announced the Super Intelligence Force, a task force meant to coordinate the government’s dealings with companies and other organizations.
Section 3 of the order is the key to reading it. According to the text the White House published on September 29, “Super Intelligence” refers to the same technologies that US law has so far called artificial intelligence. The definition stayed, and only the label changed. I go through what the order says, section by section, in my article on Executive Order 14434.
Two meanings of one word
So since late September 2026, the word superintelligence has carried two meanings that have almost nothing to do with each other. One is an expert concept, the other an official name.
| Question | Expert concept | Official name from Executive Order 14434 |
|---|---|---|
| Who uses it | researchers, philosophers, and AI companies in their stated goals | US federal agencies |
| What it means | an intellect that outperforms the best humans at practically everything | the same thing the law has so far called artificial intelligence |
| Exists today | no, it’s a goal and a subject of debate | yes, it’s today’s tools under a new name |
| Affects a European business | as a topic, not as a product | no, the order binds only US agencies |
In my AI glossary for business owners, I wrote that many AI words appeared recently and will disappear again. Superintelligence is the exception: it’s older than most of the companies that carry it in their names today. That makes it all the easier to hide anything behind it.
When the word comes up in a proposal
Ask the vendor two things: what specific work the tool will do that today’s tools can’t, and who checks its output. If they answer with a task, they’re talking about narrow AI under a new name. A vision instead of a task means they’re mostly selling you a word.
What changes for a European business
Almost nothing. Executive Order 14434 applies only to US federal agencies, and it states itself that it creates no enforceable rights. Nothing is being renamed in Europe. The AI Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689) still talks about artificial intelligence systems, and its rules for labeling AI-generated content have applied since August 2, 2026.
How binding they are differs too. According to the Guardian, the document Trump signed with the heads of the big AI companies on September 29 is voluntary and has no enforcement. The European act is law.
After the order, a business’s tools can do exactly what they could before it. An assistant that prepares your morning email summary didn’t get any better or worse because American documents gave it a new name.
Who won’t get anything out of this debate
A business that doesn’t use AI yet gains nothing from the difference between the two meanings. It first needs a first task for the machine, and that task doesn’t require superintelligence.
The opposite case is a business that writes proposals or reports for US federal agencies. It will run into the new name in requests for proposals, and a general explanation won’t be enough. It needs the text of the order and a lawyer to read it. And this won’t help anyone looking for the date when superintelligence arrives, either. Researchers’ estimates differ by decades.
The whole concept in a nutshell
- According to Bostrom, superintelligence is an intellect that outperforms the best humans at practically everything. It doesn’t exist today.
- Today’s tools are narrow AI: they handle a piece of work, make mistakes, and need checking.
- Executive Order 14434 of September 29, 2026 renamed AI in US federal agency documents but kept the definition.
- For a European business, the EU AI Act still applies, along with the same tools as in August.
- When the word comes up in a proposal, ask what specific work the tool will do and who checks it.
The next time you hear superintelligence in a meeting or a proposal, one follow-up question is enough: do you mean a machine smarter than humans, or a new name for AI? The answer tells you whether you’re listening to a debate about the future or a description of a tool you may already have. For this month, the second meaning is the more useful one. Find one manual task in your business that today’s narrow AI can handle, and hand it over before the end of October.
