SI vs AI vs Superintelligence: A Plain-English Glossary

"SI" and "AI" now mean the same thing in US federal documents: Executive Order 14434 defines "Super Intelligence" as the technologies covered by the existing statutory definition of artificial intelligence. "Superintelligence" (one word) is a different idea from AI research: a hypothetical system that surpasses human intelligence. And "SI" has meant the International System of Units for decades, and "systems integrator" in government contracting. This glossary separates them so you can read a government page, a research paper or a vendor pitch without mixing them up.

SI (the federal term): artificial intelligence by another name

Source: Executive Order 14434, signed September 29, 2026, Sec. 3(a): "the terms 'Super Intelligence' and 'SI' mean the technologies and systems encompassed by the term 'artificial intelligence' as defined in section 9401(3) of title 15, United States Code."

That statute, 15 U.S.C. 9401(3), defines artificial intelligence as "a machine-based system that can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations or decisions influencing real or virtual environments", and goes on to say such systems "use machine and human-based inputs to" perceive environments, abstract those perceptions into models, and "use model inference to formulate options for information or action".

So, in a federal document written after the order, "SI" is a label change only. The order applies to executive-branch communications and "non-statutory documents"; it does not alter existing regulations, contracts or grants (Sec. 2(b)). We walk through the whole order, and what it means in practice, in AI is now SI: what the rename means for small businesses.

AI: the term the rest of the world still uses

Outside the US executive branch, "artificial intelligence" and "AI" remain the ordinary terms, in statutes (the definition above is still the law), in standards, in vendor products, and in everyday speech. The order does not and cannot rename them anywhere else. When you see "AI" and "SI" in the same document, the safest reading is that they refer to the same thing and the author is mirroring a federal source.

Superintelligence (one word): the research sense

Source: Merriam-Webster defines superintelligence as an entity that surpasses humans in overall intelligence, or in some particular measure of intelligence, and secondarily as an extraordinarily high degree of intelligence. In AI research the term is associated with Nick Bostrom's 2014 book *Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies*, where it describes a hypothetical intellect that greatly exceeds human cognitive performance across virtually all domains.

The point to hold onto: the executive order's "Super Intelligence" does not claim this exists. Its definition is tied to the ordinary statutory AI definition, which covers a spam filter as readily as a frontier model. A spreadsheet tool that uses a language model to guess a date format is "SI" under the order and is nowhere near superintelligence in the research sense.

SI: the International System of Units

Source: NIST describes SI as "The International System of Units (SI), commonly known as the metric system", built on seven base units: the metre, kilogram, second, ampere, kelvin, mole and candela. This is by far the oldest and most widespread meaning of the abbreviation, and it is the one scientific and engineering documents will keep using. If a NIST page about measurement says "SI", it means units, not intelligence, even though NIST has said it is updating its communications to use "super intelligence" where the order directs.

SI: systems integrator (government contracting)

In federal procurement, "SI" has long been shorthand for a systems integrator: a prime contractor that assembles hardware, software and services from several vendors into one working system. This is the collision that matters most for anyone who writes proposals. A sentence like "the SI will provide the SI capability" is now ambiguous. The fix is boring and effective: define each abbreviation the first time it appears, and consider writing "systems integrator" in full for the rest of the document.

Other senses you will run into

SI for spreadsheets: what it can and cannot do

Because PipeSheets is a spreadsheet cleaning tool, we get asked whether the rename changes anything about AI in spreadsheets. It does not, but the question is a good excuse to be precise about what AI (or SI) in a spreadsheet actually means today.

PipeSheets itself has no AI features. Its steps (trim, standardise nulls, convert dates, normalise currency and headers, deduplicate, merge) are deterministic and previewable, and the column matcher that maps export headers to expected names is rule-based: exact match, normalised match, synonyms and abbreviations, then fuzzy matching with value checks. On 30 real export header sets it made every expected match and zero wrong automatic matches. If we ever add a model-backed feature, it will suggest and you will approve; that stance does not depend on what the feature is called.

Frequently asked questions

Is SI the same as AI?

In US federal executive-branch documents written after September 29, 2026, yes: the order defines SI by reference to the statutory AI definition. Everywhere else, "SI" usually means something else, most often SI units.

Is a spreadsheet AI tool "superintelligent"?

No. Superintelligence in the research sense means surpassing human intelligence generally. No spreadsheet tool, including any that uses a large language model, meets that description, and the executive order does not claim otherwise. Its definition is the ordinary AI one.

Do I have to start writing "SI" instead of "AI"?

Only if you are a federal agency, or you are writing to one and want to mirror its terminology. The order binds executive departments and agencies. It does not bind businesses, states, or anyone's product names.

Did the definition of AI change?

Not yet. The order asks the President's science adviser to propose legislative language for a federal definition of SI within 60 days (around November 28, 2026). That is a proposal; only Congress can change the statutory definition.

How should I write it in a document that also mentions a systems integrator?

Define both on first use. For example: "Super Intelligence (SI), i.e. artificial intelligence as defined in 15 U.S.C. 9401(3)" and "the systems integrator (hereafter 'the Integrator')". Then do not abbreviate the second one.

If your actual problem is that someone ran a find-and-replace of "AI" to "SI" across a spreadsheet and broke words like MAINTAIN, the bank statement cleaner page shows how PipeSheets' find-and-replace step previews every affected cell before it writes anything, with whole-word matching so abbreviations stay inside their own boundaries.