AUGUST 13 TO AUGUST 19, 2026 | JAXDAILYRECORD.COM
BUSINESS & LEGAL NEWS IN BAKER, CLAY, DUVAL, NASSAU AND ST. JOHNS COUNTIES
‘NASCENT’
INSIDE
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REAL ESTATE
Dream Finders buying Beazer Homes in deal valued at $2.2B PAGE 3
CITY GOVERNMENT
Photo by Kaili Cochran
Carlton Robinson, chief innovation officer at the JAX Chamber, left, talks with Anamaria Contreras, executive director of the Jacksonville Chamber Foundation, during a recording session at the Chamber’s podcast studio.
Survey of JEA employees offers polarized view of CEO PAGE 16
A Brookings study put Jacksonville near the back of the pack on AI readiness. Carlton Robinson is betting the city can close the gap, fast. BY CRAIG RICHARDSON CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
I
t’s been nearly four years since ChatGPT burst into browser tabs in a launch so fast and unprecedented that OpenAI says it hit a million users in five days. Almost overnight, artificial intelligence stopped meaning something abstract and became a tool you could open on your laptop and ask to write an email. That novelty phase is over. What’s replaced it, in Jacksonville and in cities like it, is a harder and less flattering question: Now that everyone has had several years to use the tools, who actually is good at it? A Brookings Institution study set out to
answer that, ranking roughly 200 U.S. metro areas by AI talent, innovation and adoption and sorting them into six tiers, from a pair of Superstars (San Francisco and San Jose) down through Star Hubs, Emerging Centers, Focused Movers, Nascent Adopters and Others. Jacksonville landed in the Nascent Adopters tier, ranked as a city keeping pace on adoption but falling behind on the talent and innovation that turn adoption into an actual economic edge. The city isn’t alone in that tier; 79 others landed there. And all share an underwhelming assessment as metros that have adopted AI tools at a decent clip but haven’t built the talent pipeline or research base to turn that adoption into a real economic advantage.
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For Carlton Robinson, chief innovation officer at the JAX chamber, that ranking wasn’t just a data point. Rather, it was the kind of sting that demands a response. It’s also, he says, the moment that pushed the chamber to treat AI readiness less like a novelty and more like civic infrastructure. The result is the chamber’s newest initiative: The Center for Applied Infrastructure, launched this year and built around what Robinson calls “human agency,” the idea that companies should first decide what has to stay human-led, then teach people to build their own AI use cases around it. “That, to me, is the secret sauce of this technology, and leading with what I’d call human SEE AI, PAGE 10
LAW AND THE COURTS
Todd Conklin Jr. receives Rookie of the Year Award The assistant state attorney was recognized for demonstrating outstanding skill as a prosecutor in the 4th Judicial Circuit. PAGE 14
THE MATHIS REPORT
DEVELOPMENT
FY Logistics OK’d for build-out in Eastport Exchange
Dark Horse fitness center advances in St. Johns County
The third-party logistics company becomes the park’s second tenant, signing a seven-year lease for space in North Jacksonville. PAGE 6
ESPN analyst Steffi Sorensen is developing the Dark Horse fitness facility in St. Johns County. PAGE 19
VOLUME 113, NO. 40 36 | TWO SECTIONS | PUBLISHED SINCE 1912