The term I’ve seen used the most is “basal cognition”. It’s used to describe agentic problem solving behavior seen at lower scales and in different problem spaces where we normally have trouble imagining intelligence. Michael Levin’s paper, “Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere: An Experimentally-Grounded Framework for Understanding Diverse Bodies and Minds”[0] is a good, readable explanation of the concept. He does a ton of YouTube talks explaining it as well.[1] Very watchable, and pretty mind-blowing. It’s not wishy washy animism. He and his lab are doing rigorous experiments and finding some very unusual things.

[0] https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/systems-neuroscience/ar...

[1] https://youtu.be/StqX-LH0IN8?si=NhwMdWxBLZrghUom