A financial services firm decides to decommission a credit scoring model because a more accurate successor has been validated and approved. What is the correct approach in watsonx.governance to handle this retirement?

Model retirement in watsonx.governance is a formal lifecycle transition that requires updating the use case status to Retired while preserving the complete historical record in the AI Factsheet. The Factsheet must be updated to document the retirement criteria, the date the decision was made, the parties responsible for the decision, and any successor model that replaces the retiring model. This approach satisfies regulatory expectations for record retention while clearly marking the model as no longer active, preventing its metrics and status from being confused with those of active production models. The correct answer, "Update the use case status to Retired and document the retirement rationale, decision date, and successor model reference in the Factsheet", directly addresses the scenario described because it aligns with the specific governance requirement in question. The incorrect options ("Delete the use case record from the governance inventory to prevent confusion with the active successor model", "Archive the model only in the source model registry and take no corresponding action in watsonx.governance", "Move the model to a Pending Deletion queue that automatically purges all records after a fixed retention period") may seem plausible but do not satisfy the core requirement. Understanding the distinction between these concepts is critical for IBM watsonx.governance implementations and is frequently tested in the 2.0 AI Lifecycle Governance section of the certification exam.