How-to not link files when placing in Illustrator

Usually when I place an Ai file into another Ai file it acts like it should: If I make changes to the original, when I go back to the file it’s placed in, it asks if I want to update it. 

Just now, I placed an Ai file into another Ai file, and instead of placing it, it pasted the artboard from the placed file so that it’s editable in the file it’s been placed into. WHAT?? Is this something new? 

The backstory is that I’m putting together a presentation of creative concepts to present to a client. The creative is placed into the presentation document multiple times, hence my having one creative development file to edit that automatically updates multiple instances in the presentation doc.