{"id":313483,"date":"2026-06-19T20:37:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T20:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/313483\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T20:37:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T20:37:07","slug":"this-week-in-jacksonville-business-edition-29","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/313483\/","title":{"rendered":"This Week in Jacksonville: Business Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Jacksonville\u2019s business community is getting a new push to move artificial intelligence from experimentation to real workforce impact.<\/p>\n

Dr. Carlton Robinson, Chief Innovation Officer at the Jax Chamber, joined \u201cThis Week in Jacksonville: Business Edition<\/a>\u201d to discuss the Chamber\u2019s newly launched Center for Applied Infrastructure and why its focus is \u201chuman-centered AI\u201d in the workplace.<\/p>\n

Robinson said the timing was driven in part by how Jacksonville was labeled in a national adoption snapshot. \u201cJacksonville was identified as a nascent adopter at the time,\u201d he said, referencing a Brookings Institute study. \u201cSo\u2026 I saw that as a really, really big opportunity for us to say, Hey. We\u2019re pretty good with AI. We\u2019ve got some amazing companies. Need people to know it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robinson described the initiative as a form of economic development\u2014treating AI readiness as something communities should build and support the way they do other essentials. \u201cWhen we think about infrastructure, we think of water. Energy,\u201d he said. \u201cOver the next three to five years, one of our biggest tasks in jobs is going to be how do we promote human-centered AI? How do we preserve human agency as this new type of technology really takes over our workplace.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A key theme: AI should help workers perform better, not be pushed as a replacement strategy. Robinson said the first step is separating what must remain human-led from what can be automated. \u201cWe\u2019ve to identify what absolutely positively needs to be human-led. And then how do we augment that with AI?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Justice noted a simple example from his own workflow: transcription tools. After recording interviews, he said, \u201cI upload a file and it transcribes our visit\u2026 this is not going to take my job, but it\u2019s going to make my job a lot easier.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robinson said that kind of practical use case sharing is part of what the Chamber wants to scale. \u201cThe more use cases we can build and demonstrate for the community, the more likely we are to start accepting the role of AI in the workplace,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

When it comes to internal rules for AI, Robinson urged companies\u2014especially smaller ones\u2014to avoid jumping straight to a strict policy. \u201cMaybe we don\u2019t start with the policy because the policy can be extremely restrictive,\u201d he said. Instead, he recommended starting with a \u201ccharter\u201d that outlines how and when AI should be used, then using real experience to inform formal policy later\u2014along with legal input.<\/p>\n

The Chamber is also rolling out hands-on workforce training through its Gen-AI Apprentice Program, built around understanding workflows, governance, and the difference between chatbots and \u201cagentic AI.\u201d Robinson defined the next phase this way: \u201cAs we move to agentic AI\u2026 we now are using generative AI and other forms of AI to complete a specific task for us autonomously. Without prompting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, Robinson said the Chamber\u2019s work will include more events, more education \u201cin short burst\u201d formats, and a focus on building a full regional pipeline. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to have our K through 12 involved in this,\u201d he said, arguing that visibility into local efforts can help reinforce Jacksonville\u2019s position as AI evolves.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Jacksonville\u2019s business community is getting a new push to move artificial intelligence from experimentation to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7364,116,118,117,7363],"class_list":["post-313483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-business-edition","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-this-week-in-jacksonville"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}