Census Bureau asks businesses about 'Super Intelligence' after renaming order

The U.S. Census Bureau has replaced “Artificial Intelligence” with “Super Intelligence” in one of the country’s most closely watched business surveys. The Business Trends and Outlook Survey now asks companies whether they used “Super Intelligence or SI (formerly referred to as Artificial Intelligence or AI)” in any business function. The wording began with the collection that started on October 19.

The survey samples about 200,000 businesses from a register of 1.2 million, and each company answers roughly every twelve weeks. The change follows Executive Order 14434, published on October 2. It tells federal agencies to use “Super Intelligence” and “SI” instead of the older terms. That covers official documents, websites and reports, and the order says the government “will not acknowledge the usage” of them.

The order says the new words cover the same technologies as the existing legal definition of artificial intelligence. It asks for draft legislation that would set a federal definition. The Bureau’s survey documentation cites the order for the wording change. Its latest published figures still come from the earlier AI question, and the first results under the new language are due with the next release.

Two breaks now complicate the numbers. The Bureau had already changed the question in November 2025. It moved from use of AI “in producing goods or services” to use in “any of its business functions.” That lifted reported adoption without any change in behaviour. Large companies answered yes about 12 percent of the time in September 2025 under the first version. By October 2026, under the second, the figure was about 40 percent.

Featured source: Simon Willison , Executive Order 14434 .

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