Education Department Proposes to Rename AI as ‘Super Intelligence’ in Grant Priorities

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) has proposed revising its Secretary’s Supplemental Priorities and Definitions—the discretionary-grant priorities used to shape its competitive grant competitions—and opened a comment period that runs through December 7, 2026 (docket ED-2026-OS-3169; 91 FR 69736).

One proposed change runs across all four priority notices being amended: it would replace “artificial intelligence” and “AI” with “super intelligence” and “SI,” which ED attributes to a September 2026 executive order on super intelligence. The same terminology appeared in the National Center for Education Statistics’ (NCES) October request for information on redesigning its data collections, which referred to “Super Intelligence (SI)” applications “formerly called AI.”

Beyond the terminology, the proposed priorities add provisions that reach postsecondary education. They would expand “SI literacy,” aligned with a U.S. Department of Labor framework; broaden education-choice and career-pathways priorities to cover competency-based education, “shortened time-to-degree models,” pre-apprenticeships, and Registered Apprenticeships; and add navigation tools comparing the costs, earnings, and student-loan impacts of education and career options. ED states the priorities “do not contain information collection requirements.”

For Institutional Research and Effectiveness (IR/IE) professionals, the proposal is relevant both for the department-wide relabeling of AI and for the emphasis on employment and earnings outcomes threaded through the revised priorities. Comments are due December 7, 2026.