Inside NASA's Four-Phase Plan to Replace ‘AI’ with ‘Super Intelligence’

Executive Order 14434 tells federal agencies to say “Super Intelligence (SI)” instead of “AI”. An internal NASA plan, reported by Space.com, shows what that takes in practice for one large agency: renamed job titles, redirected web addresses, rewritten metadata and at least one change that could break other people’s software.

The four phases

According to the document Space.com obtained, NASA is rolling the change out in four stages:

Phase	Deadline	What changes
1	October 9	Primary AI-related websites and personnel titles
2	October 30 (brought forward)	Heavily visited pages on nasa.gov and science.nasa.gov, plus a redirect for the JPL AI Group site (ai.jpl.nasa.gov)
3	November 30	More high-traffic sites and a URL rename for Ask Sage, a generative SI platform used across federal agencies
4	December 23	Remaining lower-traffic sites, internal IT systems and tools

Phase one has already changed job titles. Kevin Murphy, for example, went from “acting chief data and artificial intelligence officer” to “acting chief data and super intelligence officer”. A NASA employee told Space.com that phase two was accelerated and went live on October 16, two weeks ahead of schedule.

The plan flags phase three as a “breaking change for APIs and other integrations”, meaning software that connects to the renamed Ask Sage address may need updating.

The style rules

The plan also sets out a house style that closely tracks the order:

• “generative AI” becomes “generative SI”, and the messaging shifts from “automation” toward amplifying human ingenuity;
• bridging phrases such as “SI, also known as AI” are not allowed;
• technical terms such as machine learning, large language models and chatbot remain acceptable;
• older pages get an update or an archival disclaimer, and metadata on old videos and podcasts may be revised, but recordings, transcripts and captions stay as they were.

Guidance for scientific publications and official policy documents is still pending, according to Space.com. NASA’s public explainer, “What is Super Intelligence?”, already cites “the Sept. 29, 2026, Executive Order 14434: Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence” and says the agency is updating its communications as directed.

“Pressure from the administrator himself”

The headline quote comes from an anonymous NASA employee: “We are getting a lot of pressure from the administrator himself to act on this.” Administrator Jared Isaacman, who attended the White House event with tech executives on the day the order was signed, has adopted the new terminology. Asked about the technology at an October 1 press conference, he said, “I am the space guy here.”

Not all staff are comfortable with the change. “Super intelligence and artificial intelligence — they have two different meanings,” one meeting participant told Space.com. That echoes researchers’ concern that the EO term collides with artificial superintelligence, the hypothetical beyond-human system (SI vs superintelligence explains the difference). In a statement, NASA said it “is taking a coordinated approach to incorporating this direction across agency communications and digital resources.”

Outside government, it’s optional

The order binds federal agencies only, and companies are splitting:

• Elon Musk said SpaceX’s SI division will be renamed from SpaceXAI to SpaceXSI. “Yes, we will make that change,” he replied to a user on X, adding: “No more AI. SI, it’s better.” He gave no timeline (xAI profile).
• Sam Altman told Politico’s Decoded podcast that OpenAI has “no plans” to change its name, according to CNN, although he said the company will keep talking about super intelligence.

Most labs, and state governments such as California, are still saying “AI”. The bigger test for the vocabulary comes with the proposed federal definition of SI, due around November 28.

Explainer: Executive Order 14434 · Related: SI.gov launches as AI.gov redirects