U.S. Census Bureau survey rewords "AI" as "Super Intelligence" from 19 October 2026 collection under Executive Order 14434

From the 19 October 2026 collection, the US Census Bureau's Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS) reworded its AI question to "Super Intelligence or SI (formerly referred to as Artificial Intelligence or AI)", citing Executive Order 14434. The first results under the new wording are due Thursday. The latest published data (22 October 2026) still uses the old wording and shows adoption at about 40% among firms with 250 or more employees, up from about 30% in February 2026. The source is a personal blog post quoting the Bureau's own survey pages, and the extraction lists no primary links, so the order and wording have not been independently checked here.

The BTOS is one of the main official sources on how many US businesses use AI, so researchers, investors and regulators who track adoption are the people affected. A new label could change how respondents answer, which would make later releases hard to compare with earlier ones. This is not the first break: a November 2025 move to a broader "any business function" wording already cut the link with the earlier figures of about 12%. The effect is on data quality, not on any company or binding rule, and whether answers really shift is unknown until the new results appear.

The author's view that the renaming is absurd, and the idea that respondents may be confused, are opinion and speculation with no evidence yet. The rise from about 30% to 40% adoption should not be read as pure growth, because wording and methods changed over the period. Apollo Global Management is in the entity list, but nothing in the extraction shows it has any role in this change.

1. 01The first BTOS release using the Super Intelligence wording, due Thursday: does the large-company adoption figure of about 40% move sharply, and does the Bureau publish a comparability note?
2. 02Primary documents: the text of Executive Order 14434 and the Bureau's BTOS methodology pages, to confirm the exact wording and whether the order requires it across other federal surveys.
3. 03Whether other federal statistics bodies or outside analysts adopt, adjust or flag the new term, and whether anyone publishes a bridged series linking old and new wording over the next two to three survey waves.