Note: I spent months working on this original research report w/ friend Peter Lohmann and we're releasing it live later today. It's🔥. Register for the recording.

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A major industry milestone came and went last week with only nominal fanfare. Today we're going to kick off a breakdown of the news and real story behind it.

You've seen and heard the AI hype cycle drum beat playing for some time now.

New vendors, old vendors w/ new tricks, vibe coders, tokenmaxxers... it's all exciting, boring and exhausting at the same time.

But there's a fundamental set of assumptions that undergird all of it - and those assumptions are currently being challenged.

The Basic Assumptions That Undergird PropTech

Operators and proptech vendors work together with the understanding that:

1. The PMC owns the data they are inputting into the software
2. The software vendor owns their platform and gets to set the terms of use

That's it. Yes we could say more, but really, that's the fundamental arrangement as it pertains to the PMC and vendor.

You want to sell PMC client data? Good luck filing chapter 11 shortly thereafter.

You don't like a software vendor or their TOS? Vote with your dollars and leave.

And for the last few decades... very little about this changed.

Sure, there's been new entrants, point solutions have proliferated, and some PAS's have moved in the direction of becoming more open.

BUT... these two fundamental assumptions have held - and for good reason.

Owning your data is non-negotiable for reasons I can't even be bothered to elucidate. RentVine addresses this directly in their TOS when they say:

Similarly, every software vendor acknowledges their IP with something like:

Flowing out of these property rights is a set of usage guidelines which include expressly prohibited activities such as:

• reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or otherwise attempt to discover any of the source code, proprietary processes or algorithms associated with the Services or Output - Buildium​
• Access or use the Platform, Services, or Website through automated means, including scripts, bots, spiders, crawlers, data mining, scraping, or similar data gathering or extraction tools... - DoorLoop​
• End Client will not “screen scrape” data from FIs or collect an End User's log-on credentials for FI accounts, and will not otherwise knowingly obtain from a third party FI Data that was originally sourced through screen scraping an FI. - RentVine​
• circumvent or disable any security or other technical features or measures of the Services or any other aspect of the software or, in any manner, attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Services... - AppFolio​
• ...gathering information, insights, or intelligence regarding availability, performance, functionality, pricing, business logic, or other characteristics, or for the purpose of developing, operating, marketing, or assisting a competing product or service... - DoorLoop​

Again, PMC owns the data, software vendor owns the platform and determines the terms of use on their platform.

If either side of this pact fails, cooperation breaks down at a fundamental level.

Last week a major fissure appeared as documented on the PM assist substack:

It's worth pausing to read - and worth subscribing to Todd's 1 of 1 newsletter.

Pulled directly from the article:

Well hot damn.

Banking info, SSNs, payments to owners and tenants - all flying around at the drop of a Claude prompt - that sure would be... something.

The implications of that kind of a paradigm shift cannot be understated - and frankly it's more than can be covered in a single newsletter.

What I want to call to your attention to today is that our industry is on a near term collision course in the areas of data, control and market position.

This isn't a maybe, someday, we'll see sort of situation.

This is an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object.

The unstoppable force is accelerating AI capability that eventually renders every lock pickable.

The immovable object is property rights and each vendors' ability enforce contracts with their customers.

The most interesting part of this story is that if you can clearly identify the good guys and the bad guys... you've already lost the plot.

Data ownership should be considered a fundamental right. Full stop.

Property rights and contract law aren't nice to haves - they're bedrock principles of a free and prosperous society. A property manager who doesn't believe in these things can't fulfill their duty to their clients.

None of this should be controversial.

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Dear reader I don't have a crystal ball to know how this all shakes out - what I do know is there are going to be fireworks involved. As Todd concluded:

The complex web of incentives, strategy and legal theory governing this specific soap opera can no doubt be teased out over the coming months.

But regardless of how this showdown shakes out, the bigger trend remains that AI is accelerating the tension with closed systems and the stakes are high.

Stay tuned for deeper coverage of this industry sea change.

I'm captivated by it and would love to hear your takes, tips and questions.

Yours in waiting to see who Jared Leto plays in the HBO mini-series "PropWreck",

- JAAM​​

P.S. - PM TRENDS 2026 is live launching later today, register to get the recording because it's going to be 🔥🔥🔥

P.P.S. - You Can't Plan for Something You Haven't Felt < This take is dead on - you can't delegate AI strategy from the top unless you've made the leap.

P.P.P.S. - The first consumer holographic photo and video frame - priced @ $99

P.P.P.P.S. - Home builders like Lennar want access to the retail investor pipeline​

P.P.P.P.P.S. - Why Japanese companies do so many different things < 🔴👀

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