Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Business Establishment Automated Classification of NAICS (BEACON) is a text classification tool that helps respondents to the U.S. Census Bureau’s economic surveys self-classify their business activity in real time. The tool is based on rich training data, natural language processing, machine learning, and information retrieval. It is implemented using Python and an application programming interface. This paper describes BEACON’s methodology and successful application to the 2022 Economic Census, during which the tool was used over half a million times. BEACON has demonstrated that it recognizes a large vocabulary, quickly returns relevant results to respondents, and reduces clerical work associated with industry code assignment.
Source: Journal of Data Science
DOI: 10.6339/25-jds1180
Institution: United States Census Bureau
Language: English
Subfield: Artificial Intelligence
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4409524102