Not to me.
I assume you refer to artists, professors, poets, lawyers, priests, and other propagators of culture, effectively. I don't see why it would be offensive, but you know that folks are always blindsiding each other with newfound excuses for taking offense. It has become an industry.
Yes, I do often use the terms "intellectuals" and "intelligentsia" synonymously, though in Europe prior to the university expansion it meant pretty much the highly educated and not just the narrower definition.
Seymour Martin Lipset in his book
Political Man defined intellectuals as "all those who create, distribute and apply culture, that is, the symbolic world of man, including art, science and religion. Within this group there are two main levels: the hard core or creators of culture - scholars, artists, philosophers, authors, some editors and some journalists; and the distributors - performers in the various arts, most teachers, most reporters. A peripheral group is composed of those who apply culture as part of their jobs - professionals like physicians and lawyers.
Lipset the first and second groups in his definition of intellectuals and says that the European term "intelligentsia" included the third as well, but that has fallen out of use since.
The objection I think is that the Communist states used the term "intelligentsia" to basically describe the commissars in the service of the state.
