Updated Oct. 8, 2026
As of Thursday, Oct. 8, the Greater Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce lists Chasing AI Session #1 for Friday, October 16, 2026, from 8:30 to 10:00 a.m. EDT in its Board Room at 140 NE 1st Street, Delray Beach, FL 33444. The Chamber’s event page now carries a pricing line that reads “This NEW program is FREE for All to Attend!”. On Oct. 4, its registration page no longer showed the “No registrations are currently available” notice that was there on Sept. 13. A line in the description on the same pages still reads “This event is FREE for Chamber members!”, so the price language is not uniform, and the details are below.
Session 1 opens a new quarterly series that the Chamber is hosting with BlueIvy Communications, with lite bites, networking and a 90-minute conversation aimed at owners, operators and team leaders at companies with roughly 5 to 50 employees.
The Chamber’s listing titles the hour Chasing AI Session #1 and names the series Chasing AI: The Shift to an Agentic Work Environment. What follows is an owner-prep map: what the public pages say, who the room is built for, how to confirm a seat, and the questions worth walking in with, including accountability, tool and data ownership, and where AI earns its place in a working company. It is not a vendor feature or a prompt cheat sheet.
Sources: the Chamber’s event page, its registration page and the organizer’s own BlueIvy Chasing AI page, all re-read on Oct. 8, 2026. Pages move, so check the registration page again before you rearrange a Friday morning.
What the October 16 session actually is
The Greater Delray Beach Chamber listing is blunt about the product. BlueIvy Communications is launching a new quarterly series, in partnership with the Chamber, to help local businesses navigate artificial intelligence. Sessions are led by people the listing calls AI systems and process experts. The focus, as published, is how AI is changing the way businesses operate, serve customers, and compete, broad by design, not a single-software demo. Every session is meant to assess the current pulse, so October and the quarters that follow track a landscape that keeps moving.
The Chamber’s listing promises lite bites, networking and education from 8:30 to 10:00 a.m. in the Board Room. BlueIvy’s Chasing AI page adds detail: an opening presentation from BlueIvy CEO Mark Burns, two guest speakers, open Q&A, networking and a one-page “Where to Start” worksheet for each attendee, with the Session 1 theme listed as “Understanding the Shift.” It also says seats in the Board Room are limited and names Sessions 2 to 4 (“Redesigning the Workflow,” “Protecting Brand & Trust” and “Building the Roadmap”) without dates. Neither site publishes a minute-by-minute agenda, a speaker order, a parking map or the Board Room’s capacity, so ask the Chamber office (contacts below) if you need a run-of-show before you put a second staffer on the calendar.
The series title appears on the Chamber page and on the secondary press wire: The Shift to an Agentic Work Environment. In owner English, that is a conversation about tools that can take steps, not just draft a paragraph, inside real workflows. Walk in asking where that is useful in your shop, not whether the phrase sounds current.
Who should go, and who can skip this morning
The Chamber listing is unusually specific about the seat. Business owners, operators, and team leaders with between 5 and 50 employees, at every stage, from independent operators to established teams weighing bigger decisions together. If that is your shop (a Delray, Boca, Boynton or South County firm old enough to have payroll and young enough that one bad tool decision still hits the owner’s phone at 9 p.m.), this room is built for you.
Practical fits: owners whose staff already use ChatGPT, Copilot, or a vertical tool on the side and have never written down who may paste customer data into it; operators who were sold a “we’ll automate intake” pitch and still cannot name the human who checks the output; team leaders told to “get us on AI” with no budget, data rule, or definition of done; 5 to 50 shops that need 90 minutes with other owners, not a 12-week incubator application.
Who can skip, or send someone else: solo operators with no team and no customer data in play who mostly need a public literacy night (the published audience is 5 to 50); high-growth tech founders hunting an incubator or capital intros (see the stack section below; this morning does not replace a Boca or Fort Lauderdale apply map); anyone expecting a software bake-off or a vendor shortlist. The Chamber page does not publish one. Do not treat speaker IDs as a shopping cart.
If you go, go as a decision-maker or send the person who actually owns the process you might change. Sending an intern to “take notes on AI” wastes the 90 minutes.
Clock, Board Room, hosts
Per the Chamber GrowthZone listing and the matching registration page, re-read Oct. 8:
- When: Friday, October 16, 2026, 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. EDT
- Where: Greater Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce, Chamber Board Room, 140 NE 1st Street, Delray Beach, FL 33444
- Hosts / partners as listed: the Greater Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce and BlueIvy Communications, which the Chamber lists as the Chasing AI series sponsor for 2026-2027 and as host
- Price: the Chamber’s Pricing field reads “This NEW program is FREE for All to Attend!”; the description on the same page reads “This event is FREE for Chamber members!”; BlueIvy’s page says “Free for Chamber members.” No page publishes a fee for guests or non-members.
- Chamber office: chamber@delraybeach.com · 561-278-0424
The listing prints a parenthetical (713) next to the Chamber name on the location line. Treat that as a GrowthZone location code, not a suite number. The street address to put in a calendar invite is 140 NE 1st Street.
BlueIvy’s Chasing AI page and a Sept. 9, 2026 press release name Mark Burns, CEO of BlueIvy Communications, as the series host in collaboration with the Chamber. The release quotes Stephanie Immelman, President and CEO of the Greater Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce, saying members are generating more questions about AI than almost anything else, and that the quarterly format is meant so they do not have to sort it out alone.
In the same release, Burns said owners tend to hold two feelings about AI at once: they know it matters, and they have no idea where to start. He said the series is not there to sell software or hand out prompt lists. Hold the room to that standard: if the hour slides into a product pitch, your notes should still be about your workflows.
Speakers as listed: what to listen for
The Chamber listing names two inaugural speakers, and BlueIvy’s page adds that BlueIvy CEO Mark Burns gives the opening presentation. The descriptions below come from the event pages. They are not endorsements and not a reason to hire anyone on the way out of the Board Room.
Brian Schmitt, CEO of Chief of Life, described on the Chamber page as a conversion-optimization agency that runs data-driven experiments for brands including Hydro Flask and Osprey, and that now helps companies apply AI and automation with rigor.
Radu Pisano, founder of Pisano Designer, described on the Chamber page as a Delray Beach firm that helps businesses adopt AI and automation they own and can audit, drawing on years of IT expertise and digital forensics.
In the Sept. 9 press release, Schmitt is quoted saying the businesses getting real value from AI are not the ones using the most tools; they are the ones asking better questions and testing their assumptions, and that he wants to give owners a practical way to see where AI earns its place and where it does not. Pisano is quoted saying most AI problems he sees are not technical; they are accountability gaps: a tool gets adopted, and nobody decided who checks its work or what happens when it is wrong. After sixteen years in digital forensics, his message in the release is that owners can put AI to work without taking on risk they cannot see.
Those two sentences are the owner hinge. Listen for tests, baselines, and failure modes from Schmitt’s hour. Listen for who checks the work, who owns the data, and what you can still audit if a vendor disappears from Pisano’s. Write those answers against your shop. Do not leave with a logo sticker and a tool name you cannot explain to your bookkeeper.
Price and registration as of Oct. 8
What the Chamber pages say about price: the event page’s Pricing field reads “This NEW program is FREE for All to Attend!” The description on the same page, and on the registration page, still ends with “This event is FREE for Chamber members!” BlueIvy’s Chasing AI page says “Free for Chamber members.” None of the pages publishes a guest or non-member fee, a no-show penalty or a member-plus-one rule.
What changed on registration: on Sept. 13 the registration page at chamber.delraybeach.com/ap/Events/Register/jKFVVo8IZCkCE displayed “We’re sorry. No registrations are currently available. You may wish to contact the event organizer for assistance.” On Oct. 4 that notice was hidden, and the page showed a sign-in box with Create an Account and Register as Guest options. BlueIvy’s page sends its Register buttons to the same Chamber form. On Oct. 4, a $0 option in the form was still labeled “Member Fee (Members Only),” which sat oddly beside the “FREE for All” line. The seat count and the options a non-member sees inside the form are not published.
Treat a seat as confirmed only when you have a confirmation message or a written answer from the Chamber. A calendar card is not a ticket, and a screenshot of a third-party recap is not a confirmation.
What to do:
- Open the Chamber registration page, choose Sign In or Register as Guest, and complete the form. Save the confirmation.
- If the form will not seat you, or you are not a member and want the price in writing, email the Chamber office at chamber@delraybeach.com with your business name, membership status (member, guest or not sure), the number of people and one line on why you want Session 1.
- Call 561-278-0424 if you need a same-day answer.
- Check the GrowthZone listing and the registration page again the week of October 12, since the Chamber can change either without a press release.
If the Chamber office tells you registration is closed, waitlisted or members-only, go with the Chamber’s answer over any recap.
Guest seats: the Chamber pages and the press release
The Chamber’s Pricing field now says the program is free for all to attend. Its description, the registration page and BlueIvy’s page still say free for Chamber members. A Sept. 9, 2026 BlueIvy press release says registration is free for Delray Chamber members and first-time Chamber guests and points readers to the same GrowthZone address. Read together, the pages agree that Chamber members attend free and differ on whether every guest does.
If you are not a member, say so on the registration form or in an email to the Chamber office, and ask in one sentence whether a guest fee applies to Session 1 and whether you should join the Chamber first. Wait for a written answer. No dollar figure appears on the Chamber pages, the BlueIvy page or the press release.
If you are already a member, say so, so staff are not guessing.
Questions to walk in with
Ninety minutes disappear if you arrive with “tell me about AI.” Arrive with a short list you can actually use on Monday. Three buckets match what the listing and the on-record speaker quotes already point at: accountability, tool and data ownership, and where AI earns its place.
Accountability
- Who, by name and role, checks the model’s work before a customer sees it?
- What happens when it is wrong: refund, redo, tell the customer, or silence?
- Which jobs may use a tool on live customer work, and which may not, until we say so in writing?
- Is there a human in the loop for anything that touches money, medical or legal advice, hiring, or reputation?
- If a staffer pastes a client file into a consumer chatbot this week, who is responsible?
Tool and data ownership
- If we turn this on, who owns the prompts, the outputs, and the workflow when we cancel the vendor?
- Does customer data leave the building? To where? Under what contract language we have actually read?
- Can we audit the steps, or is the process a black box with a logo?
- Do we have an export of our own records that still works if the login dies on a Friday?
- Are we training someone else’s system on our customers without saying so?
Where AI earns its place
- Which workflow is repetitive, measurable, and currently eating hours we can count?
- What is the baseline today (minutes, error rate, conversion, cost per lead) before a tool?
- What would “better” look like in 30 days, in a number a skeptic on the team would accept?
- Where would a tool create risk we cannot see, and is that a reason to wait?
- If we can only pick one process this quarter, which one, and who owns the test?
Write the answers you already have in a notebook before October 16, even if the answer is “we don’t know.” The session is more useful as a check against that notebook than as a first hearing of the topic.
Bring three artifacts, paper or phone:
- A one-page inventory of tools already in use (including free consumer apps on personal phones).
- One process you would consider automating and one you would not automate this year, with a sentence of why.
- A data map crude enough to be honest: where customer names, cards, health, or legal files actually live.
What to do before you enter 140 NE 1st Street
Treat the days before October 16 like a short operating checklist, not a save-the-date.
This week
- Register on the Chamber’s form, or email the Chamber office if the form will not seat you or you want the guest price in writing.
- Confirm your membership status. If it has lapsed, ask whether that affects a free seat.
- Put Friday, October 16, 8:30 a.m. on the calendar as a hold until you have written confirmation.
- Start the tool inventory. You will find more apps than you think.
The week of October 12
- Draft the question list in the three buckets. Cut it to ten questions you will actually ask or listen for.
- Name the staffer who owns “AI experiments” if it is currently everyone and no one.
- If a vendor has been circling with a demo, freeze the purchase until after the session, not because the Chamber will bless or kill a product, but because you will hear better questions.
- Re-check the registration page and the GrowthZone listing. If you have no confirmation by then, call 561-278-0424 and ask whether seats remain. Do not show up on a guess if staff say the Board Room is full.
- Print or save the one-pager, the do-not-automate list, and the data-map notes. Two people who can decide beats five people who can only relay slogans.
October 16 to 17
- Arrive for the published 8:30 a.m. start in the Board Room. Lite bites and networking are part of the listing; use them to meet other 5 to 50 operators, not to pitch your own stack.
- Take notes in the three buckets. Capture rules and tests, not product names. Before you leave, write three Monday decisions: one thing you will stop (usually ungoverned pasting of customer data), one test you will run, and one thing you will not touch this quarter.
- Next morning, send a five-line recap to your team: what we will not put into a chatbot, who checks work, what we will measure for 30 days. Future quarters are advertised; exact dates are not on the listing.
How this stacks with Levan, FAU Runway, and Delray CRA
South Florida owners are currently staring at several “AI / founder / capital” doors that are easy to mash into one confused week. Keep them separate.
This Chamber session (Oct 16, Delray Board Room). Ninety minutes. Quarterly series. Audience published as owners / operators / team leaders with 5 to 50 employees. Free for Chamber members, and the Chamber’s pricing line now reads free for all. It is literacy, adaptation and owner questions, not an application, a grant or a cohort.
Levan Center Founder’s Journey (Fort Lauderdale / NSU). Stage-gated founder programs (Ideate, Incubate, Accelerate) plus priced Tech Tuesdays membership inside a public-private innovation floor. That is a multi-week apply-and-attend map, not a Chamber breakfast. Related guide: Levan Center Founder’s Journey Map. A good October 16 notebook does not fill in a Levan application, and a Levan cohort does not replace a Delray membership conversation.
FAU The Runway Venture Program (Boca). High-growth / disruptive-tech incubator-accelerator framing, with a live apply door and a hard published list of who is not eligible (including retail, franchises, and lifestyle businesses without national scale). Resources-and-services language, not a Chamber seminar. Related guide: FAU The Runway Venture Program, Boca Apply Map. If you run a 20-person Delray services firm with no productized national path, Runway’s cut-outs may already answer “should I apply?” and this Chamber hour is still the closer fit.
Delray Beach CRA funding assistance. Place-based dollars and rules (Paint-Up, tenant-only tracks, closed developer programs). Geography and construction/site eligibility, not AI policy. If your actual blocker this quarter is a storefront or a CRA-owned tenant improvement, start with the related guide: Delray Beach CRA Funding Assistance Map. Do not walk into the Board Room on October 16 asking the speakers to underwrite a façade grant, and do not put an AI-tool invoice on a Paint-Up application.
Honest stack: Chamber = 90-minute owner questions among 5 to 50 shops. Levan = Broward founder tracks. Runway = Boca high-growth tech apply map. CRA = place-based funding. Pick the door that matches the job. Owners who try to make one Friday morning do all four jobs waste a quarter.
What the published pages do not say
The Chamber and BlueIvy pages do not publish a guest or non-member fee, a seat count, a Board Room capacity, a parking rule, a speaker-by-speaker agenda or dates for Sessions 2 to 4. The pages also differ on who attends free, and the press release adds first-time guests. Anything beyond the lines quoted above is worth confirming with the Chamber before you plan around it.
The short version as of Oct. 8: Friday, October 16, 2026, 8:30 to 10:00 a.m. EDT, Chamber Board Room, 140 NE 1st Street, free for Chamber members on every page, free for all on the Chamber’s pricing line, two named guest speakers plus an opening presentation from BlueIvy’s CEO, and a registration form that showed sign-in and guest options on Oct. 4. Confirm your seat in writing, then arrive with accountability, ownership and “where it earns its place” already written down.
Key Facts for Owners and Search
When and where is Chasing AI Session #1 in Delray Beach?
Chasing AI Session #1 is Friday, October 16, 2026, from 8:30 to 10:00 a.m. EDT in the Chamber Board Room of the Greater Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce, 140 NE 1st Street, Delray Beach, FL 33444. It is the first session of the quarterly series “Chasing AI: The Shift to an Agentic Work Environment,” hosted with BlueIvy Communications.
Does it cost anything to attend?
The Chamber’s event page prices the program as “FREE for All to Attend!” while its description and BlueIvy’s page say it is free for Chamber members. A Sept. 9, 2026 BlueIvy press release says free for members and first-time Chamber guests. No page publishes a guest or non-member fee, so ask the Chamber office to confirm in writing.
How do I register for Chasing AI Session #1?
Use the Greater Delray Beach Chamber’s registration page, which on Oct. 4 showed a sign-in box and a Register as Guest option. For questions, email the Chamber office at chamber@delraybeach.com or call 561-278-0424, the main line published on the Chamber’s contact page. Save your confirmation message.
Who speaks at Chasing AI Session #1?
BlueIvy’s page lists an opening presentation from BlueIvy CEO Mark Burns and two guest speakers: Brian Schmitt, CEO of Chief of Life, and Radu Pisano, founder of Pisano Designer, a Delray Beach firm. No speaker order is published. Neither page includes a Board Room capacity or a parking map.
Who is the session built for?
The Chamber describes the series as built for business owners, operators and team leaders at companies with between 5 and 50 employees, from independent operators to established teams. BlueIvy says each attendee leaves with a one-page “Where to Start” worksheet for choosing one process in the business to adapt for AI.
Sources, re-read Oct. 8, 2026: Chamber GrowthZone listing, Chamber registration page, BlueIvy Chasing AI page and the BlueIvy press release of Sept. 9, 2026.
