Census Bureau rebrands AI to 'Super Intelligence' under executive order
Simon Willison discovers U.S. Census Bureau has renamed AI to SI in its business adoption survey per Executive Order 14434.
What to know
- The U.S. Census Bureau has replaced 'AI' with 'Super Intelligence' (SI) in its Business Trends and Outlook Survey starting October 19, 2026, per Executive Order 14434.
- The survey question was already broadened once (December 2025) from AI use in 'producing goods or services' to 'any business functions,' making pre- and post-change data incomparable.
- Large companies reported ~40% adoption under the latest 'any business functions' wording as of October 2026, up from ~12% under the original narrower question.
- Data analyst Simon Willison flagged the terminology shift as problematic for tracking genuine adoption trends over time.
The rebranding undermines data quality and comparability for tracking AI adoption trends.
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“the Bureau has fallen foul of Executive Order 14434, aka the asinine Super Intelligence one”
Simon Willison · Simon Willison blog ↗
Simon Willison Data analyst and technical writerU.S. Census Bureau Federal statistical agencyExecutive Order 14434 Federal policy directive
How it unfolded 1 development · click the chart to see its coverage articlesposts
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Willison discovers and analyzes rebranding of AI survey terminology
Data analyst Simon Willison, while updating his AI adoption chart with October 2026 data, discovers the Census Bureau has replaced "AI" with "Super Intelligence" in its survey following Executive Order 14434. He characterizes the order as "asinine" and notes the terminology change complicates tracking adoption trends.
“In updating a graphic showing U.S. company AI adoption over time according to a long-running U.S. Census Bureau survey, I found out that the Bureau's work has been sullied by that asinine "Super Intelligence" executive order…”
— Simon Willison -
first by HN Frontpage, 6d ago · also Simon Willison
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In updating a graphic showing U.S. company AI adoption over time according to a long-running U.S. Census Bureau survey, I found out that the Bureau's work has been sullied by that asinine "Super Intelligence" executive order
2 more of the top 3 · 10 posts in this stretch
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> Beginning with the October 19, 2026 collection, instrument wording was updated due to Executive Order 14434.But hang on, surely “(formerly referred to as Artificial Intelligence or AI)” fails the provision in §1¶3 “not acknowledge the usage of ‘Artificial Intelligence’ and ‘AI’ in any applicable setting” (admittedly not reiterated in §2 or §3)?
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As a business owner I get these surveys. In times past I'd spend a bunch of time responding, on the theory it's my duty to help the government gather accurate statistics. Now I delete the emails on arrival since the government is under the control of goose-stepping imbeciles who wouldn't know good data if it smacked them in the head.
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background
Simon Willison publishes October 2026 data showing 40% adoption among large firms — The latest Census Bureau data, published October 22, 2026, shows that large companies (250+ employees) report AI adoption at approximately 40% under the expanded "any business functions" question wording.
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background
Census Bureau replaces 'AI' with 'Super Intelligence' per executive order — Beginning with October 19, 2026 data collection, the Census Bureau updates its survey wording to replace "Artificial Intelligence" with "Super Intelligence or SI" following Executive Order 14434. The new question covers SI use in "any of its business functions" with expanded examples of SI applications.
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background
Census Bureau expands survey to cover all business functions — The Bureau announces and implements a question change, broadening scope from AI use in production to "any of its business functions," making data before and after this date not directly comparable.
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background
Census Bureau narrows AI survey question to production use — The U.S. Census Bureau's Business Trends and Outlook Survey asks businesses: "In the last two weeks, did this business use Artificial Intelligence (AI) in producing goods or services?"
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background
Apollo Global Management publishes AI adoption chart from Census data — Apollo Global Management releases a chart based on U.S. Census Bureau data showing AI adoption rates among U.S. companies, which appeared to indicate a slowdown in adoption among large firms.
What people are saying 7 voices from 1 site · best of 10 · verbatim
- Nov 2
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It reinforces partisan identity in language. You can’t talk to someone about AI if they stop listening the moment you say AI. Same if you want to shape the narrative around SI datacenters.
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I am thankful for EO14434 because it lets me immediately identify which data sources and people are either too idiotic or cowardly to be worth listening to on anything.
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I wish we could talk more about Natural Stupidity, which is the flip side of Artificial Intelligence, the seeming desire of humans to show that they are dumber than a machine.
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Less meeting them halfway and more blasting past them at Mach 10 and continuing to accelerate.
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I think when it comes to making machines smarter than humans, Executive Order 14434 represents an admirable effort by this administration to meet the machines halfway.
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Its showing up in all the NIST stuff now too. Gave me quite mid-meeting snort when I saw that.
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I only use Super Intelligence (SI) in Lake America, in the Gulf of America, and maybe soon in the Trump Ocean. In there it's a Golden Age like nobody's ever seen before. Everywhere else I just use AI.