A New Rule for AI "News": Two Details or It Doesn't Count
Every property management software company on earth is “releasing AI features soon, at some price.” Congratulations to all of them.
That sentence is doing a lot of work, so let me explain.
Most press releases aren't news
Over the last few months, my inbox has filled up with press releases announcing AI products. New AI agents. New AI capabilities. New AI skills. The vendors are racing to plant a flag and call themselves the leader in their category, and I get why. AI is genuinely one of the most important things happening in our industry right now. I want to cover it.
But here's the problem: most of these announcements tell you almost nothing.
No release date. No pricing. No tier information. Just "we're building AI, here's some vague info, please write about us." And I've been writing about it, because it feels like I should. AI is a big deal, the announcements keep coming, and covering them seems like the job.
Then I read the tenth one in a row and realized I was passing along noise dressed up as signal.
The fact that your company is also building AI features does not make it news. It's the table stakes of running a software business in 2026. Telling me you're working on AI is like telling me you have a mobile app and a support team. Okay. So does everyone.
The new rule
So, effective immediately, here's the deal. I will not cover an AI announcement from any vendor unless it includes both of these things:
Availability. When can we actually get it? Today? Q3? "Coming soon" doesn't count.
Pricing. What does it cost, or what tier of service is it attached to?
That's it. Two pieces of information. The two pieces an operator actually needs before any of this matters to their business.
If a press release skips both, it's not news. It's a billboard. And I'm not in the billboard business.
Naming names (lovingly)
I'm not going to pretend this is hypothetical. Recent announcements that showed up with no release date, no pricing, or — usually — neither:
AppFolio's AI Agents
Entrata's new AI capabilities
Obligo's Deposit AI Agent
Rently's AI Leasing Agent
Rentvine's MCP and Pro Skills agent
I like a lot of these companies. This is a standard I'm holding everyone to, them included. Every one of those announcements could become something I'd happily write about the day it shows up with the details attached.
Here's how to do it right
For contrast, look at Rent Manager's Orion AI announcement. It came out a while back, but they did the thing everyone else skips: they told us exactly what's available now and which subscription tiers get the new features. Their language was specific: "Tools powered by Orion AI are only available to Rent Manager Plus and Premium users."
That one sentence is worth more than ten paragraphs of "revolutionary AI-powered innovation." It tells an operator whether this applies to them and what it'll cost. That's the whole point.
Specific, actionable, useful to owners and operators. That's the bar.
What I'm actually asking for
To be clear, I want to cover this stuff. If you work at one of these companies, think of this as a roadmap to getting covered. Send me the availability and the pricing, on the record, and I'll gladly write it up in my newsletter or on LinkedIn.
My whole job with this newsletter is to keep it high-signal. Every vague AI press release I pass along makes it a little less useful to the people reading it. So until the details show up, I'm going to pass. Send me the two numbers and we're in business.
Why I'm being a hardliner about this
I want to be clear about where I'm coming from, because this rule might read as anti-AI. It's the opposite.
I'm genuinely bullish on AI in property management. I built PeterBot (an AI clone trained on 800,000+ words of my own newsletters, podcasts, and Notion notes) so operators can get my actual answers on demand instead of waiting on a DM I might not have time to get to. I believe AI is one of the most important things happening in our industry. I'm not standing on the sidelines wagging a finger.
But here's what I keep coming back to: AI works best when it strengthens the systems you already have. It validates your lease data, automates the repetitive review nobody wants to do, and surfaces the discrepancies you'd otherwise miss at 11pm. It becomes your next team member, one trained to think the way your company thinks. The wins are real, and they're specific.
The hype is the problem. Property managers are a skeptical bunch. We've all watched a vendor overpromise and underdeliver, and we've all paid for it. A press release that says "we're building AI" and stops there asks you to take it on faith. An announcement with a release date and a price tag respects you enough to let you decide for yourself.
What I'm asking the vendors
So this isn't me being a grump about technology. It's me holding AI announcements to the same standard I'd hold any other business claim: show me what it does, when I can get it, and what it costs.
Do that, and I'll write about your AI all day long. It's the most interesting thing in the industry right now, and I want to cover it well. But covering it well means filtering out the noise so the signal actually lands.
Two details. Availability and pricing. That's the price of admission. Send them over to peter@rlpmg.com and I’ll consider sharing.