"All official titles and the names of Department governance bodies, systems, platforms, inventories, and programs must use SI in place of AI," the unclassified State Department cable instructs.
The State Department cable and what it requires
An unclassified cable issued to the entire department — obtained by Government Executive and Nextgov/FCW and described to reporters by two people familiar with the matter — directs State Department personnel to replace the phrase "artificial intelligence" with "Super Intelligence" (or the abbreviation "SI") across new letters, emails, public messages, websites, reports, remarks and policy documents, subject to legal exceptions. The memorandum says existing material should be updated the next time staff revise it.
The instructions go beyond wording. The cable explicitly orders that "All official titles and the names of Department governance bodies, systems, platforms, inventories, and programs must use SI in place of AI." It applies department-wide and is presented as the State Department’s implementation of an executive order issued by President Donald Trump on Sept. 29 that directed executive agencies to adopt the new terminology.
How the cable translates the Sept. 29 executive order into practice
The cable implements the executive order by converting a broad, presidential-level instruction into specific, workplace requirements for diplomats and program managers. It directs staff with questions about terminology in the context of international agreements or departmental rules to seek guidance from the appropriate policy or legal office. The notice also records that administration officials had discussed the terminology change with certain State bureaus in recent weeks, but the cable appears to be the department’s first organization-wide directive spelling out where the language must be used.
One concrete renaming has already been applied: the American AI Exports Program is now the American SI Exports Program, the cable says, and the program’s public website already uses that new name.
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Get a security leadLegal and practical exceptions the cable preserves
The cable specifies several exceptions to the blanket replacement. Language that is required by law — including existing legal citations and quotations from statutes, regulations, treaties and other legal instruments — must be preserved. Contracts and grants are excluded from immediate revision "pending further guidance." Previously published documents, cables and archived web pages should not be revised or reissued solely to change terminology. The instructions also preserve the published titles of existing presidential actions, programs and organizations (for example, America's AI Action Plan) unless the department provides further direction.
Diplomats, legal teams, and program managers: what to watch and do
- U.S. diplomats and foreign interlocutors: The cable changes the language diplomats are to use in policy documents and in discussions with overseas counterparts; however, the cable instructs employees not to change the internal names of foreign organizations in U.S. writings — for example, references to China’s World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization should remain as named by that organization.
- State Department legal and policy offices and contract managers: The cable routes terminology questions about international agreements and departmental rules to policy and legal offices, and it defers changes to contracts and grants pending additional guidance, meaning these teams will be operational choke points for any future revisions.
- Program managers and communications teams: Programs, websites and official titles are being rebranded where the department has already taken action (the American SI Exports Program website is cited). Communications teams are instructed to apply "SI" in new materials and to update existing materials only as they are next revised.
Other agencies and early public uptake
The vocabulary change has already appeared in other federal public remarks. National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross used "super intelligence" and "SI" repeatedly during an Oct. 1 discussion on AI safety, following the Sept. 29 order. Office of Personnel Management CIO Adam Starr used "SI" in remarks the week before the State cable, describing an Office of Personnel Management initiative called the SuperIntelligence Governance and Adoption Program, or "SI GAP," created to assist agencies in adopting the technology.
The cable, by making the terminology change a department-wide requirement with specified legal carve-outs, shows how a presidential-level instruction is being operationalized inside U.S. diplomacy. It preserves statutory language and contract terms for now, routes implementation questions to legal and policy offices, and demands that program names and governance bodies align with the new vocabulary unless further direction says otherwise.
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2026/10/state-department-super-intelligence/416705/
