Title is working on it. What does that actually mean?

"Title is working on it."

That can be an accurate update and still leave you unable to make a decision.

What is the issue? What are they waiting for? Does anyone know what the next step depends on? Is the expected closing date still realistic, or are we carrying it forward because nobody has a better answer?

As an owner, the finish line is practical: the wire landed. The ambiguity I want to manage is everything happening around an unresolved title issue before that point.

Find out which question is still open

Consider an illustrative exchange. The title contact requests a document. Someone on your team sends it and updates the deal: "Title issue handled."

The title contact then replies that the document has been received and is under review.

Your team completed its immediate action. The outstanding issue may still need an answer. If the deal record compresses both events into "handled," the owner loses the distinction that matters for the next decision.

Another example: the coordinator is waiting for title, while title is waiting for information from the seller. The seller does not know a response is needed. Every person can describe their own waiting state without anyone owning the handoff.

Before asking for another status update, identify the unresolved question and the dependency preventing an answer.

Write an update that supports action

Here is an example of the detail I would want in a coordination record:

Document received, response outstanding

• Known: The title contact confirmed receipt of the requested document.
• Unresolved: Whether it addresses the issue they raised.
• Next action: The coordinator will request that confirmation from the title contact.
• Owner: The transaction coordinator owns the follow-up inside our company.
• Checkpoint: Record the agreed response time, or state that no time has been confirmed.
• Source: Link the request, the submission, and the latest response.
• Business question: Whether we can continue planning around the expected closing date.

This is a fictional example. The useful feature is that a person can see what is known and what still needs an answer.

"Unknown" is an acceptable entry. An invented completion date is not useful information.

Keep the separate issues separate

A transaction can have more than one open question. A response about a document should not silently clear an unrelated question in the same deal.

Keep each issue attached to its own source, next action, and latest confirmation. Then summarize the implications at the deal level.

That lets the owner see why progress on an individual item has not yet changed the overall situation. It also makes it easier to reopen an issue when new information changes an earlier understanding.

If messages conflict, show the conflict. A reassuring sentence in the latest email should not erase a specific unanswered question from an earlier one.

Give AI a coordination job

AI could help assemble the message history, identify unanswered questions, and draft an update in that format. It could propose a follow-up that asks for the missing information rather than repeating "any update?"

Every summary should lead back to the messages it relies on. Someone responsible for the transaction should check whether the proposed interpretation is accurate.

The title professionals address the title issue. The proposed AI role is to keep their requests, responses, and outstanding questions understandable to the people coordinating the deal. It should not turn a document receipt or an ambiguous email into a conclusion that the issue has been resolved.

Escalate when there is a business decision

Routine follow-up belongs with the coordinator. An owner-facing item becomes useful when it explains a decision the team cannot make on its own.

For example: "We do not have confirmation that this issue is resolved. The coordinator has requested it. We need to decide whether to change our operating plans while the answer is outstanding."

That gives the owner the uncertainty, the action underway, and the reason for being involved. It is more useful than forwarding the entire thread with "thoughts?"

The checkpoint matters even when no decision is needed yet. It tells the team when to look again and who will do it, without pretending the answer is under their control.

Test whether the next person can understand it

Open a deal with an unresolved title issue. Using the record alone, can a person explain the exact open question, who is expected to respond, and who in your company will follow up?

Can they distinguish a proposed solution from a confirmed response? Can they see which business decisions remain uncertain?

Those are useful tests of the coordination process. You can improve them before adding AI, and use them to evaluate whether an AI summary actually helps.

This is one application of AI-powered business execution and owner oversight. The companion Salesforce QA/audit piece looks at another source of uncertainty: what the CRM record can and cannot tell an owner.

If "title is working on it" keeps turning into another round of owner investigation, that is a useful workflow to bring to a scoping conversation.