The U.S. Census Bureau and “Super Intelligence”

What it claims

The BTOS AI-adoption series has two wording breaks, so Apollo's September 2025 "trending down" chart cannot be extended as one continuous line. Simon Willison shows that the Census Bureau changed the question on 17 November 2025, from AI use "in producing goods or services" to AI use "in any of its business functions." The Bureau announced the change on 3 December 2025. Willison states that answers before and after 17 November 2025 are not directly comparable. The rise for 250+ employee firms, from about 12% to about 30% and then about 40%, spans that break.

A second break starts with the 19 October 2026 collection. Under Executive Order 14434, the question now asks about "Super Intelligence or SI (formerly referred to as Artificial Intelligence or AI)." The examples were rewritten to match, for instance "generative SI for marketing, product design, or coding" and "virtual SI agents for customer service." The October 22, 2026 release still reflects the old AI wording. The first results under the SI wording were due the Thursday after the 2 November 2026 post.

How it works

BTOS runs every two weeks. Each round goes to 200,000 of 1.2 million businesses. The panel rotates, so an individual business answers only once every twelve weeks. Results are published on alternating Thursdays at 10am.

Willison's chart uses the "Employment size class" XLSX file from the BTOS data page. The post links his copy of that file and a snapshot of the 346KB survey PDF sent to businesses. The full question texts are:

• Before 17 November 2025: "did this business use Artificial Intelligence (AI) in producing goods or services?"
• From 17 November 2025: "did this business use Artificial Intelligence (AI) in any of its business functions?"
• From 19 October 2026: the "Super Intelligence or SI" wording quoted above.

All three versions ask about "the last two weeks."

Limits

Any AI-adoption trend built on BTOS needs a series break at 17 November 2025 and another at the 19 October 2026 collection. Willison raises it as an open question whether the SI relabelling will change responses. Respondents last saw the question twelve weeks earlier, when it still said AI. The post gives no numbers under the SI wording, because none had been published by 2 November 2026. Willison calls Executive Order 14434 "asinine" and the SI example wording absurd. Both are his opinions. The post does not describe the order's contents beyond its effect on the survey wording.