The best answer is B. Evaluate the scalability of current non-AI solutions . In PMI-CPMAI, the project manager should not assume that AI is the right answer simply because the problem is important or data-rich.
The methodology emphasizes first determining whether an AI approach is actually needed and comparing it with non-cognitive or non-AI alternatives before moving deeper into data planning or implementation. PMI's official exam content outline includes conducting AI go/no-go assessments , separating cognitive from non-cognitive tasks , and aligning the solution approach to the real business need. It also stresses that understanding the AI pattern involved helps teams choose the right data strategy and scope responsibly.
Predictive maintenance is a recognized AI pattern area, but that still does not remove the need to assess whether a simpler existing solution can scale sufficiently.
Option A matters, but data suitability should be examined after the team has confirmed that AI is justified.
Option C is part of business-case work, and Option D is even later because operationalization planning only makes sense once AI has been chosen. Since the question asks what should be done first while weighing existing alternatives, PMI-aligned logic supports evaluating whether the current non-AI approach can already meet the need at scale.

PMI-CPMAI describes a very practical early-stage activity: breaking down a solution into components or sub- functions and then deciding which components actually require AI and which do not. This is often referred to as a components-based analysis. The idea is to decompose the overall workflow or product into units such as data ingestion, preprocessing, prediction, rule-based decisioning, user interface, reporting, and integration layers.
For each component, the team asks:
Does this require cognitive capability (learning from data, pattern recognition, probabilistic reasoning)?
Or can it be handled by conventional software, rules, or existing systems?At the same time, they identify technology and data requirements: data sources, data quality, storage, pipelines, compute needs, and integration points for each AI-relevant component. PMI-CPMAI ties this directly into later tasks such as technical feasibility, architecture design, and MLOps planning.
Detailed data mapping (option A) is useful but focuses mainly on information flows, not necessarily on AI vs non-AI partitioning. Technical feasibility assessment (option B) evaluates whether a proposed AI approach is realistic but presumes that the AI portions are already identified. Only components-based analysis (option C) simultaneously answers "which parts need AI, which do not, and what are the tech/data needs for each?", which matches the scenario precisely.

PMI guidance on prompts and prompt engineering states that prompts "supply the system with context and guidance as well as constraints," and that the value of a GenAI system "can only be realized through the instructions provided to it." PMI further explains that while an AI system can respond to very short inputs,
"the less specific a prompt, the more likely the results will be vague or unhelpful," explicitly linking insufficient specificity/context to degraded usefulness. In PMI's recommended "diverge and converge" prompt approach, teams begin broad, then progressively refine, adding details such as industry, region, project type, intended use, and examples-because "the granularity of the input will be directly proportional to the utility of the output received." Therefore, if the team provides insufficient context, the model must "guess" what is intended, which most directly manifests as answers that are not aligned to the actual task needs (i.e., lacking relevance), rather than being more accurate or more efficient.

Within PMI-CPMAI's "Support Responsible and Trustworthy AI Efforts," privacy and security are treated as core, high-severity risks because they can trigger regulatory violations, reputational damage, and harm to individuals. PMI explicitly calls out the need to establish a privacy/security plan with encryption and access controls, privacy impact assessments, and secure handling of personally identifiable information (PII) across the AI lifecycle. If user data is stored in an unsecured database, the agency faces immediate exposure to breach, unauthorized access, and misuse-risks that are typically higher impact than stale data, vendor reliance, or even lack of transparency. In PMI guidance on AI data life cycle management, prolonged retention and weak security increase breach likelihood over time, making insecure storage a critical vulnerability that undermines trust and compliance. While transparency gaps are serious (PMI also emphasizes explainability requirements and audit trails), a direct security failure that exposes user data is generally the most acute and consequential risk because it can cause harm quickly and irreversibly, and it can halt the program through legal and policy intervention.