When an AI initiative faces risk due to potential inaccuracies in data aggregation, PMI-CPMAI–aligned practice says the very first action is to understand the data characteristics before taking any corrective measures. This includes clarifying data sources, aggregation logic, granularity, formats, lineage, and quality dimensions (completeness, consistency, accuracy, timeliness, and validity). By doing so, the project manager and data team can determine where and why aggregation errors are arising, and whether they stem from upstream systems, ETL/ELT pipelines, joining logic, or business rules.

PMI’s AI data lifecycle guidance stresses that you cannot reliably “fix” freshness, delete records, or visualize results until you have a structured understanding of the data landscape and its transformation steps. Jumping to deletion (option B) can worsen bias or information loss, and focusing only on freshness (option A) or visualization (option D) treats symptoms rather than root cause.

Therefore, the correct first step in mitigating this type of risk is to understand the data characteristics (option C), which then informs targeted remediation actions, improved aggregation logic, and robust data quality controls aligned with the AI solution’s objectives and risk appetite.