For researchers, educators, and analysts looking for high-frequency, empirical data on how real businesses are operating, including their adoption of Artificial Intelligence, the U.S. Census Bureau’s Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS) is an incredible resource.
The BTOS tracks bi-weekly sentiment and operational shifts across key Metro Statistical Areas (MSAs), providing granular data on:
AI Integration: Real-time tracking of current AI usage in business functions (e.g., machine learning, NLP, virtual agents) and 6-month forward-looking adoption expectations.
Core Economic Indicators: Revenue changes, employment figures, total hours worked, demand, and inventory levels.
Price & Cost Dynamics: Input vs. output pricing pressures over time.
External Disruptions: Impact of interest rate shifts and extreme weather events on business operations.
Whether you are building classroom case studies, conducting empirical HCI/economic research, or guiding graduate data portfolios, having access to public datasets with detailed metadata and standard error calculations offers a great foundation for proof-of-concept analyses.
đŸ”— Explore the data: You can access public download files and data dictionaries directly through the U.S. Census Bureau BTOS portal at census.gov/business-trends.