The Business Trends and Outlook Survey now asks about any business function, not just goods and services.
The U.S. Census Bureau changed the artificial intelligence question in its Business Trends and Outlook Survey on November 17th, 2025, swapping a prompt about producing goods or services for one about any business function. Large firms reporting AI use climbed from roughly 12 percent in September 2025 to about 40 percent by October 2026.
The Bureau surveys 200,000 businesses drawn from a panel of 1.2 million, cycling each respondent through the questionnaire every twelve weeks and publishing results on alternating Thursdays at 10am. Apollo Global Management used the earlier series in September 2025 to argue that corporate AI adoption was slowing, and Simon Willison reran those numbers a year later to find the question itself had moved.
Teams benchmarking AI adoption against public data now face a series break at November 2025, because the broader any-business-function wording captures back-office, marketing, and support deployments that the old goods-and-services prompt excluded. Comparisons spanning the change overstate growth unless analysts segment the data before and after the revision.
The Bureau publishes fresh BTOS results every other Thursday, so the next release extends the post-change series and lets analysts compare like-for-like quarters for the first time. Willison also ties the episode to Executive Order 14434, the Super Intelligence order, which he criticizes in the same post.
What matters
- The Census Bureau replaced its goods-and-services AI question on November 17th, 2025.
- Operators comparing AI adoption across years must account for the broader question wording.
- Watch the next BTOS release, published on alternating Thursdays, for the first full-year comparison.
Why it matters
Watch the next BTOS release, published on alternating Thursdays, for the first full-year comparison.
This GenAI News article was prepared in original wording using reporting and materials published by Simon Willison’s Weblog. Source reference: https://simonwillison.net/2026/Nov/2/census-bureau-super-intelligence/.
Drafted by the GenAI News review pipeline.