Friday, October 16, 2026 is not another “AI is coming” breakfast on a South Florida calendar. It is Session 1 of a new quarterly series the Greater Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce is hosting with BlueIvy Communications inside the Chamber Board Room at 140 NE 1st Street, Delray Beach, FL 33444 — 8:30 to 10:00 a.m. EDT, with lite bites, networking, and a 90-minute conversation aimed at owners, operators, and team leaders running shops of roughly 5 to 50 employees.
The Chamber’s live listing titles the hour Chasing AI Session #1 and names the series Chasing AI: The Shift to an Agentic Work Environment. This Gazette package is an owner-prep map: what the public pages actually say, who the room is built for, how to handle a registration page that currently shows no seats, and the questions worth walking in with — accountability, tool and data ownership, and where AI earns its place in a working company. It is not a vendor feature, not a prompt cheat sheet, and not a promise that the Register button will be open when you click it.
Lead source: the Chamber GrowthZone event page. Re-check that page and the Register URL before you rearrange a Friday morning. Pages move. This map reports what they showed on a Sept. 13, 2026 pull.
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.
What the listing actually promises on the clock: lite bites, networking, and education, 8:30–10:00 a.m., Board Room. What it does not publish: a minute-by-minute agenda, speaker order, slide titles, a parking map, Board Room capacity, or dates for Sessions 2–4. Do not invent those. Ask Lynn Van Lenten (contacts below) if you need a run-of-show before you put a second staffer on the calendar.
The series title is verified 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; 5–50 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 5–50); high-growth tech founders hunting an incubator or capital intros (see the stack section — 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
Verified on the Chamber GrowthZone listing and the matching Register page:
- When: Friday, October 16, 2026, 8:30 a.m.–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: BlueIvy Communications and the Greater Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce
- Event contact on the listing: Lynn Van Lenten — lynn@delraybeach.com
- Chamber desk: 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.
A Sept. 9, 2026 press wire (secondary; not the lead) names Mark Burns, CEO of BlueIvy Communications, as the series host in collaboration with the Chamber, and quotes Stephanie Immelman, President and CEO of the Greater Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce: members are generating more questions about AI than almost anything else, and the quarterly format is meant so they do not have to sort it out alone. Use those names as published principals — not as an agency profile.
On that same wire, Burns said owners tend to hold two feelings at once — they know AI matters, and they have no idea where to start — and that 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. These are factual IDs from the event page, 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.
On the secondary Sept. 9 wire, 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 on that wire 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.
RSVP reality: members free, register page closed
Cost on the Chamber pages: this new program is FREE for Chamber members. That sentence appears on both the GrowthZone listing and the Register page. This Gazette will not invent a guest ticket price, a non-member fee, a no-show penalty, or a member-plus-one rule the Chamber pages do not print.
RSVP status on this pull (Sept. 13, 2026): the live Register page at chamber.delraybeach.com/ap/Events/Register/jKFVVo8IZCkCE displays “We’re sorry. No registrations are currently available. You may wish to contact the event organizer for assistance.” The GrowthZone details page is live and describes the session; it does not, on this pull, give owners a working public checkout that can be treated as open inventory.
Do not promise yourself an open RSVP. Do not assume a seat because the calendar card exists. Do not screenshot a third-party recap and call it a ticket.
What to do instead:
- Email lynn@delraybeach.com with your legal business name, membership status (member / guest / not sure), number of people, and a one-line reason you want Session 1.
- CC chamber@delraybeach.com if you want a paper trail on the main desk.
- Call 561-278-0424 if you need a same-day answer.
- Re-check the GrowthZone listing and the Register URL the morning you send that note, and again the week of October 12 — GrowthZone inventory can change without a press release.
- Screenshot whatever confirmation you receive. A calendar hold is not a confirmation.
If Lynn or the Chamber desk tells you the type is closed, waitlisted, or members-only until further notice, believe the staff over a blog recap.
Guest seats: Chamber pages vs the press wire
Soft-flag, and do not paper over it. The Chamber GrowthZone listing and the Register page both say the program is FREE for Chamber members. They do not, on this pull, publish a guest rate, a non-member rate, or a “first-time guest” sentence.
A Sept. 9, 2026 EIN press wire — useful as secondary context for the series, not as the lead listing — states that registration is free for Delray Chamber members and first-time Chamber guests, and points readers at the same GrowthZone URL. That guest clause is not corroborated on the Chamber pages used as primary for this map.
Owner rule: do not assume a free first-time-guest seat. If you are not a member, say so in the email to Lynn and ask, in one sentence, whether first-time guests are seated gratis for Session 1, whether a guest fee exists, and whether you should join the Chamber first. Wait for a written answer. This Gazette will not invent a dollar figure to fill the gap, and it will not treat a press-wire sentence as a ticket policy when the Register page is the desk that actually seats the room.
If you are already a member, bring that status in the email 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 weeks between this map and October 16 like a short operating checklist, not a save-the-date.
This week
- Email Lynn / the Chamber desk as above. Do not wait for the Register page to “fix itself.”
- Confirm membership status. If you are lapsed, ask whether that blocks 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.
Two weeks out through 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 Register and GrowthZone. If inventory opens, complete it and screenshot the confirmation. If it still shows no registrations, call 561-278-0424 and ask whether walk-ins are being taken. Do not show up on a guess if staff say the Board Room is closed or 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 16–17
- 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 5–50 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 the desks separate.
This Chamber session (Oct 16, Delray Board Room). Ninety minutes. Quarterly series. Audience published as owners / operators / team leaders with 5–50 employees. Free for members on the Chamber pages. Literacy, adaptation, and owner questions — not an application, not a grant, not 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. Use the live Gazette package: 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. Use the live Gazette package: 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, use the live Gazette map: 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 5–50 shops. Levan = Broward founder tracks. Runway = Boca high-growth tech apply map. CRA = place-based funding. Pick the desk that matches the job. Owners who try to make one Friday morning do all four jobs waste a quarter.
What this Gazette will not invent
No guest or non-member ticket price. No claim that first-time guests are free unless the Chamber desk says so in writing — the EIN wire is secondary and currently uncorroborated on that point. No promise that RSVP is open; the Register page on this pull says it is not. No Board Room capacity, parking rule, or speaker-by-speaker agenda the listing does not print. No dates for later quarters beyond “quarterly.” No vendor ranking of BlueIvy, Chief of Life, or Pisano Designer. No personal attacks on Chamber or series principals named on the public pages. No invented syllabus of “agentic” tools.
The owner product is the map: Friday, October 16, 2026, 8:30–10:00 a.m. EDT, Chamber Board Room, 140 NE 1st Street, free for members as published, series title verified, two speakers identified as listed, and a registration gap you solve by emailing Lynn Van Lenten, calling 561-278-0424, or re-checking GrowthZone — then walking in with accountability, ownership, and “where it earns its place” already written down.
Primary sources for this package: Chamber GrowthZone listing, Chamber Register page. Secondary (series quotes and guest-clause soft-flag only): EIN press wire, Sept. 9, 2026.
