Signal
The federal government is preparing to measure AI as part of an ordinary day.
On July 10, the Bureau of Labor Statistics requested public comment on a proposed artificial intelligence module for the American Time Use Survey. The agency wants to connect AI use with a continuous 24-hour record of work, education, household production, leisure, and the other activities that fill a person's day.
Subject to Office of Management and Budget clearance, BLS plans to field the questions beginning in January 2027 for two years. The comment period closes September 8, 2026.
What changed
The American Time Use Survey asks one selected person age 15 or older to reconstruct the previous day in a telephone interview. The diary runs from 4 a.m. to 4 a.m. Interviewers record what the person did, how long each activity lasted, and usually where it happened and who was present.
That proposal would add about two minutes of AI questions. The notice says the module would identify whether people have used AI tools, which tasks involved them, how use varies across demographic and occupational groups, and how it relates to time spent across major parts of daily life.
The planned annual sample is 7,672 respondents. BLS estimates 256 total burden hours per year and says the resulting public-use microdata, tabulations, and technical documentation would give researchers the first nationally representative federal dataset linking AI use with activity-level time records.
Why it matters
Adoption counts can tell us how many people say they use an AI tool. A time diary can show where the tool entered life.
ATUS already organizes activity by purpose. Paying bills on a computer is recorded as household financial management. Ordering groceries online remains shopping. The activity stays visible while the device recedes into the background.
This AI module creates a useful second layer. A writing assistant used at work, a chatbot consulted during homework, and a recipe tool opened while making dinner may all count as AI use. Their consequences could differ because the surrounding activity differs.
That context may help researchers ask better questions about skills, household labor, education, and work. It may also make weak measurement easier to spot. But a broad yes-or-no question could hide whether AI took over a task, supplied one suggestion, ran quietly in another product, or simply changed the order of the day.
What this does not prove
This is a proposal moving through the federal information-collection process. OMB has not cleared it, fielding has not begun, and no survey findings exist.
The Federal Register notice does not include the proposed question wording. That leaves key definitions and skip patterns unavailable for review from the notice alone.
Because a one-day self-reported diary also has limits, brief or background AI use may be forgotten. Respondents may disagree about which software functions count as AI. ATUS usually records one main activity at a time, apart from limited exceptions such as secondary childcare, so simultaneous use may be difficult to place. A diary can record time allocation. It cannot establish that AI caused a time change, improved the result, raised productivity, displaced a job, or saved time that would otherwise have been spent on the same task.
What to watch
The questionnaire will determine the value of the dataset.
Watch whether it distinguishes work from personal use and asks which activity was underway when AI appeared. Check how it defines an AI tool, treats AI functions embedded inside familiar software, and records use that happens in the background. Look for a way to separate assistance from substitution.
And keep the time claim bounded. If someone finishes one task faster and spends the freed minutes on another task, the diary may show the new allocation without proving what produced it.
The measurement question is concrete: will the final survey capture the activity AI entered, or only the presence of AI somewhere in the day?
Source trail
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, Federal Register notice, “Proposed Information Collection; ATUS Artificial Intelligence (AI) Questions,” July 10, 2026
- Federal Register API record
- Official GovInfo PDF
- BLS, American Time Use Survey
- BLS, ATUS questions and answers