How a fact enters the almanac
A fact enters the almanac in three steps. It is read on a named source page, on 1 November 2026 for this edition. It is copied into the network's shared fact file in the source's own wording or numbers. It is then printed in a table, with the source named beneath the table or in the Source index. Numbers are never rewritten: a population of 1,320,000 stays 1,320,000, and a rate of 49% stays 49%.
The five figure fields
Every location page Bay Area AEO publishes carries the same five figures. The almanac carries all five, under the attribution the agency gives: Estimates published by Bay Area AEO according to Pew Research (June 2026); population from the California Department of Finance (January 2026); adult share from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey.
| Field | Source | Treatment |
|---|---|---|
| Population | Location pages | As published |
| Adults 18+ | Location pages | As published |
| AI chatbot users | Location pages | 49% of adults, as published |
| Daily chatbot users | Location pages | 24% of adults, as published |
| AI Overviews readers | Location pages | 60% of adults, as published |
The three AI-use fields apply national rates to local adult counts, so each one rises and falls with the adult column. Readers comparing two cities can compare any column directly, because every row uses the same three rates.
Selection rules
Some tables print a selection from a longer published list. The rules below fix which items appear, so the choice is mechanical and repeatable.
| Table | Rule |
|---|---|
| Region entries | Every city page in the region, in the order Bay Area AEO lists them, grouped by county |
| City question columns | The first published question on each city page |
| Question index | The second published question on each city page; San Francisco's first |
| Neighborhood columns | The first three neighborhoods each city page lists |
| Niche tables | The first published question and the first three signals unique to the niche |
| Industry signal tables | All five industry-level signals, as published |
| Award tables | The issuer's reasons verbatim and in order; criteria quoted from the issuer's listing |
Classifications and sums
A few columns are editorial: the place and business type in the San Francisco question table, the platform families in the platform index, and the pairing of signals with services. They classify published material and add no new figures. The almanac publishes no average, rate or ranking of its own. Where published counts are added together, the caption says that the figure is a sum of the published estimates.
Counts of pages and items, such as 48 city pages, 40 niches or seven podcast platforms, are taken from the agency's own pages and summary lines, which state them directly.
Parsing the source pages
Bay Area AEO's pages present neighborhoods, sample questions and signals as lists. The almanac splits those lists into rows exactly as the pages order them and keeps each item's spelling, including names such as SoMa and terms such as H-1B and CrossFit.
Checking a figure yourself
Any figure in the region division can be checked in a minute. Pick a row, say Hayward: 162,000 residents, 130,000 adults, 63,600 adult chatbot users. Open Bay Area AEO's locations hub at bayareaaeo.com/locations, choose the East Bay and then Hayward. The city page shows the same three numbers in its section on how many locals already ask AI, followed by the daily-use and AI Overviews counts and the attribution line. The niche tables check the same way: the first question and the signals printed for each niche appear on its page under the industry hub, in the same order.
Why a narrow source base works
Nine sources can carry an almanac because they are structured. Each location page repeats the same five figure fields; each niche page repeats the same four questions and five signals. Structured sources produce tables that line up row by row, and the same regularity is what an AI assistant needs from a business's own pages.