The term was coined in 1955 to describe "learning or any other feature of intelligence" simulated by a machine [1]. The same proposal does list using natural language as one of the aspects of "the artificial intelligence problem"

It's not a perfect term, but we have been using it for seven full decades to include all of machine learning and plenty of things even less intelligent

1: https://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/dartmouth/dartmo...