The Census Bureau now asks businesses about 'Super Intelligence.' It means AI.

One of the better public measures of whether companies actually use AI has a new label. Since its October 19 collection, the U.S. Census Bureau's Business Trends and Outlook Survey asks businesses about Super Intelligence, or SI, rather than artificial intelligence. Simon Willison noticed while rerunning his AI adoption chart, and the survey's own page attributes the change to Executive Order 14434. The question now explains that SI was "formerly referred to as Artificial Intelligence or AI."

What the numbers say

The survey goes to 200,000 of 1.2 million businesses every two weeks, and each one answers about every twelve weeks. Willison's update, using data published October 22, shows large companies (250 or more employees) moving fast. In September 2025, about 12% of them said yes, under the old question about using AI to produce goods or services.

In November 2025 the question was widened to cover any business function. Under that wording, large firms said yes about 30% of the time by February 2026 and about 40% by October.

Three questions, one line

That's the catch: one trend line now spans three wordings. Answers before and after November 2025 aren't directly comparable, as Willison points out, and the first results under the SI wording are due Thursday. Respondents last saw the question twelve weeks ago, when it still said AI. The list of examples has been rewritten too, with SI swapped in for generative marketing tools, customer-service agents and the rest, which Willison finds absurd. It's hard to argue.

If you cite adoption numbers in a pitch deck or a board slide, check which question the number answers. The jump from 12% to 40% is part real growth and part wider net. A rename shouldn't change what companies do, but it can change who ticks the box.

Scoreboard update: AI +1. Large-company AI adoption climbs to about 40%, whatever the government calls it.

Stay undead.