AI & autonomy
Data provenance
The trace of where a property-management fact originated, which people or systems transformed it, and which source evidence supports its current value.
Glossary
AI & autonomy
Data provenance is the history needed to explain a record. For a rent balance, it can connect the signed lease, posted charge, processor event, bank settlement, adjustment, and current ledger line. For an AI-generated reply, it can show the property facts retrieved, policy version applied, model action, reviewer, and final message.
A provenance record names the entity, source system and identifier, responsible actor, activity or transformation, time, version, destination, and supporting receipt. It should distinguish a copied value from a calculated one and preserve correction history. Provenance is narrower than a full audit trail but can link into one.
Suppose an AI assistant tells a tenant that a $75 fee remains due. The current PMS screen shows $75, but provenance reveals the value came from yesterday’s export and a payment posted this morning. The system can refresh or escalate rather than sending a stale assertion. Without the trace, the owner sees a number but cannot judge its freshness or authority.
When choosing an integration, ask whether destination records retain source IDs, timestamps, mapping versions, and correction links. Export a sample and follow one payment or lease field backward. If the vendor can only show the latest value, a failed transformation or missing event cannot be isolated, and disputes and migrations will require reconstruction from screenshots and memory.
Provenance questions for AI
For each consequential answer or action, identify which facts were used, when they were retrieved, which policy bounded the step, and which person or system authorized the final effect. A model explanation without source records is not provenance.
A compact provenance packet
For a sampled ledger line, retain the source entity ID, originating document or event, transformation rule, actor, timestamps, destination ID, and correction chain. That packet should survive an export.