𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐈 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐡 𝐓𝐞𝐥𝐥: 𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐃𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐀𝐬 𝐂𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 Read this Bisnow piece this morning. An operator with 20,000+ units partnered with a migration-prediction startup to lower their cost per lead. The CEO’s proof point? After the Mamdani election, the platform picked up “an influx of people’s desire to move” from New York. I didn’t need software for that. Anybody with a TV picked it up the same night. If an election result qualifies as an AI insight, so does the weather report. The signal was free to begin with. HUD has published quarterly migration data since 2005. USPS change-of-address patterns are publicly available. Google Trends is free. If a platform’s headline example is something you could Google, the platform isn’t the reason you saw it. Then there’s the proof problem. Operators make operational changes all the time without matched controls. Pricing tweaks, new ad channels, different turn protocols. Fine. But a paid tool making a causal claim is a different animal. “We rolled it out to some properties and CPL dropped” is not proof of lift. Different markets, different classes, different staff, different supply. Ten variables moved. One of them is the software. Some products are easy to measure. Smart thermostats cut a utility bill you can see on the statement. A new turn vendor either closes units faster than the old one or doesn’t. Call the old vendor back if it doesn’t work. Low stakes, fast feedback, numbers you can read. Lead generation software is the opposite. CPL moves on weather, seasonality, competitor concessions, your own pricing, the ad platform’s algorithm deciding to like you that week. By the time you’ve run a “test,” the baseline has shifted under you three times. Vendors know this. It’s why the case studies all read the same: we rolled it out, things got better, here’s a quote from the CEO. Invert the whole thing. If the tool didn’t exist, what would a sharp operator do after Mamdani won? Read the news. Run lookalikes off their converted leads. Let Meta’s own algorithm expand from there. The baseline is close to free. Carl Sagan said extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. That applies to any vendor walking into your office with a case study. https://lnkd.in/eYR-JsC8