Super Intelligence (SI) for State & Local Government AI: Why SLED Differs From Federal
A county procurement officer skims a news alert on her lunch break: the federal government has given artificial intelligence a new official name. Her inbox already has three bidders asking whether the county’s AI RFP template needs a rewrite before the next bid cycle opens. She has forty minutes before her next meeting and one real question — does a presidential order aimed at federal agencies reach her desk at all?
It does not. Super Intelligence (SI), formerly called artificial intelligence (AI), is the federal executive branch’s new name for the same technology under Executive Order 14434 (Source: Executive Order 14434, Sec. 2, signed Sept. 29, 2026), and because states are separate sovereigns, the order does not bind state or local government agencies or their procurement language.
Why Executive Order 14434 Stops at the Federal Line
Section 2 of Executive Order 14434 directs “executive departments and agencies” to use “Super Intelligence” and “SI” “to the maximum extent permitted by law” in official correspondence, public communications, websites, reports, policy documents, and other non-statutory documents “within the executive branch” (Source: Executive Order 14434, Sec. 2). A legal alert from Wiley Rein confirms the order is executive-branch-directed and “does not immediately alter previously issued regulations, Presidential actions, contracts, grants” — older materials stay the same “unless modified through future Executive or agency action or public law” — while advising contractors and federal grant recipients to expect more agency use of “SI” in communications and procurement materials and to “seek clarification as needed to confirm that requirements remain the same.” A research note from the Cloud Security Alliance states plainly that the order “does not bind state governments, courts, foreign regulators, or private parties” (Source: Cloud Security Alliance Research Labs, Oct. 7, 2026). A presidential executive order simply has no direct authority over state or local government operations — county procurement codes and state RFP templates are not “within the executive branch” the order describes.
The order also leaves history untouched: nothing in it “requires the alteration of previously issued regulations, Presidential actions, contracts, grants, or other historical documents” (Source: Executive Order 14434, Sec. 2(b)). This is not the first time this administration has used that exact scope template. An earlier order gave the Department of Defense a “secondary title” of “Department of War” for use in “official correspondence, public communications, ceremonial contexts, and non-statutory documents” — nearly identical language to Executive Order 14434’s own scope clause (Source: Executive Order 14347, Sec. 2). “Super Intelligence” is built on the same template: a federal terminology directive for executive-branch documents, not a claim on how a state or county government writes its own paperwork.
State and local governments are also major recipients of federal grants, and that is where the rename is most likely to actually reach a SLED desk — through correspondence, not through binding law. Expect new federal notices of funding opportunity, program guidance, and grant conditions to carry more “SI” language as individual agencies adopt the order’s preferred terminology internally. Wiley Rein’s advice to grant recipients applies directly here: when a federal notice or grant condition arrives written in “SI” terms, confirm with the grantor agency that the underlying requirement is unchanged, and keep an AI-to-SI crosswalk in the grant file rather than treating the new word as a new compliance category. One federal date is worth marking on a calendar: Section 3(b) of the order gives the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology 60 days from signing — to on or about November 28, 2026 — to submit proposed legislative language to establish a Federal definition of “Super Intelligence” (Source: Executive Order 14434, Sec. 3(b)).
| Scope | What EO 14434 Does | What It Does Not Do |
|---|---|---|
| Federal executive branch | Directs agencies to prefer “Super Intelligence”/“SI” in new non-statutory communications, to the extent the law allows. | Does not rewrite statutes, prior regulations, or existing contracts and grants. |
| State & local government | Nothing — states are separate sovereigns outside the order’s scope. | Does not require any state agency, county, or municipality to change RFP, statute, or policy language. |
| SLED suppliers & contractors | Nothing directly — the order has no private-sector obligation. | Does not require a bidder's capability statement or proposal boilerplate to change. |
| Federal grant correspondence | Expect more agencies to write “SI” in new notices, guidance, and grant conditions. | Does not change the underlying grant requirement — confirm with the grantor agency and keep a crosswalk on file. |
California Directs Its Own Agencies to Keep Using “AI”
One day after Executive Order 14434, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed his own order on the exact question a SLED procurement officer would ask: should the state follow the federal relabel? Executive Order N-10-26, signed September 30, 2026, directs that agencies and departments under the Governor’s authority continue to use “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI,” unless inconsistent with the law (Source: Office of Governor Gavin Newsom, Executive Order N-10-26, Sept. 30, 2026). It is a dated instance of a state directing its own agencies to keep the AI terminology, one day after the federal order was signed.
California is the only state so far with a published executive-level response to Executive Order 14434: one state, one order, not a national trend. California also runs a separate AI order track entirely: EO N-5-26, Newsom’s March 30, 2026 directive on AI procurement standards and supplier certification, is a different order with a different number and a different purpose (Source: DLA Piper, Apr. 6, 2026) — worth knowing so the two are never confused in a procurement conversation.
What SLED Procurement Officers Should Actually Watch For
An executive order cannot bind a state, but a state legislature can change its own law any time it chooses — that is the mechanism to watch, not another federal register search. The National Conference of State Legislatures’ AI legislation tracking is the right place to start. State lawmakers introduced more than 1,561 AI-related bills across 45 states as of March 2026 (Source: MultiState AI legislation tracker), and states had enacted 109 AI laws by July 1, 2026, just behind 2025’s pace of 121 by the same date (Source: Tech Policy Press, mid-2026 summary).
No state bill using “Super Intelligence” or “SI” terminology had been found in 2026 state AI-legislation tracking as of October 11, 2026. The 2026 state bills that do exist regulate AI systems themselves — deepfakes, chatbot safety for minors, algorithmic discrimination — not the name of the field.
Colorado makes a related point from a different angle. Its original 2024 AI law (SB 24-205) was delayed once by the state legislature, from February 1 to June 30, 2026 (Source: Hunton Andrews Kurth, Colorado AI Act delay), and then repealed and replaced outright: Governor Polis signed SB 26-189 on May 14, 2026, which replaces the law’s “artificial intelligence system” term with “automated decision-making technology” (ADMT), effective January 1, 2027 (Source: Mayer Brown, May 2026). Every one of those changes, the change of term included, came from Colorado’s own legislature months before Executive Order 14434 existed — state law sets its own terms on its own track and its own schedule.
RFP Template Guidance for the Near Term
No urgency, four checks. The order that renamed “AI” to “Super Intelligence” inside the federal executive branch creates no requirement for a county or state IT department to rewrite an AI RFP template this quarter. California is the clearest live example: the state has required GenAI disclosure language in all IT, non-IT, and telecommunications solicitations since full implementation on April 30, 2024 (Source: GovTech, California GenAI procurement guidelines), and Governor Newsom’s EO N-5-26, signed March 30, 2026, added a new AI supplier-certification process on a 120-day clock (Source: DLA Piper, Apr. 6, 2026). That clock expired July 28, 2026, and California issued nine AI-related RFPs in the following 30 days — including the Alameda City Housing Authority’s AI governance policy consulting solicitation, the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety’s AI-powered permit-check assistant, and the San Diego Police Department’s AI report-writing tool, each still written in “AI” terminology (Source: NationGraph, Aug. 2026). Georgia’s GS-25-002, “Procurement of AI Tools: Guidelines for Responsible Use,” has been effective since July 1, 2025, built on the state’s 2023 enterprise AI policy (Source: Georgia Technology Authority) — current, state-primary-source, and entirely “AI”-labeled.
- Leave existing AI RFP templates as written. Your procurement code and disclosure rules still reference “AI,” and no state-level mandate currently requires otherwise.
- If a bidder's own proposal starts using “SI” language, treat it as a signal, not a red flag — a bidder already using the federal government's own term is tracking where grant language is heading, which helps an evaluation rather than complicating it. Ask for a one-line crosswalk back to “AI” terminology in that proposal's defined-terms section so the evaluation stays apples-to-apples.
- Confirm no control, policy, or contractual commitment hinges on the literal word “AI.” Build a terminology crosswalk if one does, rather than treating “SI” as a new compliance category.
- Watch your own state legislature and your federal grantor agencies — not a general federal register search — for any future terminology change, through state AI-legislation trackers such as NCSL's.
None of this changes how a state or county buyer actually runs a procurement. Iternal’s own RFP and RFI document automation for public-sector buyers and the broader public-sector government AI use-case library cover the operational side of procurement that state and local teams already use AI for today — the same capability Iternal calls Super Intelligence (SI), whatever label a given solicitation still uses.
CJIS, Procurement Codes, and Disclosure Rules Are Unaffected
A federal-only naming change does not touch any of the substance SLED teams already manage. CJIS (Criminal Justice Information Services) requirements for law enforcement AI tools are set by their own governing security policy, administered through each state’s CJIS Systems Agency. Executive Order 14434 does not amend that policy, nor was it written to: it is scoped to federal executive-branch terminology, not to law-enforcement technology standards. State procurement codes and existing AI disclosure rules — California’s and Georgia’s included — remain exactly as written. For the full FERPA and CJIS-aligned deployment detail — K-12 districts, law enforcement, and county government use cases — the AI guide for SLED covers them in full.
Federal civilian agencies sit on the binding side of the same jurisdictional line; Super Intelligence (SI) for Federal Government Agencies covers what Executive Order 14434 asks of them.
Iternal backs the name itself, not just the federal government’s authority to use it inside its own agencies. The case-handling work that fills a county service desk has a close, measured parallel: generative AI raised issues resolved per hour by 15% on average, and by about 30% for less-skilled and less-experienced agents, in a study of 5,172 customer-support agents (Source: Brynjolfsson, Li & Raymond, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2025-02-04), and GAO counted 571 reported AI use cases at 11 selected federal agencies in 2023, then 1,110 at those same agencies in 2024 (Source: U.S. Government Accountability Office, GAO-25-107653, Jul. 29, 2025). Gains like these, and that pace of public-sector adoption, are why Iternal backs the Super Intelligence (SI) name for state and county work too, well beyond the federal documents Executive Order 14434 covers, and why a SLED team that puts the capability to work on its own case queues now is the one positioned to use it well. For more information visit the Why Iternal Supports Super Intelligence page.
More on the AI-to-SI Terminology Shift
FAQ: Super Intelligence (SI) for State & Local Government
No. Section 2 of the order binds federal executive agencies only — a presidential executive order does not have authority over state or local government operations, and no clause in EO 14434 purports to reach SLED entities.
No state legislation adopting the term had been found as of October 11, 2026. California’s Executive Order N-10-26 (Sept. 30, 2026) directs its own agencies to continue using “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI,” unless inconsistent with the law.
Not with any urgency. Your procurement code and disclosure rules still reference “AI,” and no state-level mandate currently requires otherwise — California's and Georgia's own current procurement rules are both still written in “AI”/“GenAI” terminology.
Treat it as a bidder naming its capability accurately, not as a red flag. Ask for a one-line crosswalk back to “AI” terminology in the proposal's defined-terms section so the evaluation stays apples-to-apples, and confirm no control, policy, or contractual commitment hinges on the literal word “AI.”
A state AI-legislation tracker, such as the National Conference of State Legislatures' database, plus your own legislature's bill search — not a federal register search. State-level terminology change, if it happens, would come through state law, not a federal executive order.
No. CJIS (Criminal Justice Information Services) requirements are set by their own governing security policy, administered through each state's CJIS Systems Agency, and are unaffected by a federal naming change. See the full SLED guide for the compliance detail.
No — they are distinct concepts. Section 3(a) of EO 14434 ties SI to the statutory AI definition: “the technologies and systems encompassed by the term ‘artificial intelligence’ as defined in section 9401(3) of title 15, United States Code” — the capability in use today. Artificial superintelligence (ASI) is Nick Bostrom's theoretical threshold: “any intellect that greatly exceeds the cognitive performance of humans in virtually all domains of interest.” See SI vs. AGI vs. ASI for the distinction.
A Federal Vocabulary Change, Not a State Mandate
Executive Order 14434 gave federal agencies an accurate name for real, measured capability. It did not change your county's procurement code, your state's disclosure rules, or your CJIS obligations — and as of October 11, 2026, no state action adopting the federal term has been found. Keep running your AI RFPs exactly as written, watch your own state legislature and your federal grantor agencies for whatever comes next, and treat a bidder who already calls it Super Intelligence as one naming the capability correctly, not one adding paperwork.
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