Imagine a property agent starts an AI rewrite of a listing description. While it runs, a colleague corrects a factual detail in the same listing. The AI result then arrives, based on the older version.
What should the application do with that result?
A useful distinction is finishing generation versus accepting a change. The generated draft can be retained without replacing the current description.
HTTP already has a building block for this problem. RFC 9110, section 13.1.1 describes If-Match as a way to guard against accidental overwrites when clients update the same resource. With a supporting API, a client sends the strong ETag it read; a failed precondition can produce 412 Precondition Failed.
For a property-content editor, a possible design is:
- Record the listing revision used to generate the draft.
- Save the AI output as a separate proposal.
- Compare that base revision with the current listing when someone applies it.
- If they differ, show the original, current, and proposed text for review.
The difficult part is the user experience. A changed punctuation mark and a corrected room count should not necessarily receive the same treatment. A version check catches a conflict; it does not decide whether the new wording is factually safe.
Would you block every stale AI draft, allow field-level merging, or always require a review screen? What would make your choice change?
This is a hypothetical design question, not a claim about a particular product's implementation.