MetAiBlock
ICABAA Black Professionals Month 2026 event
Black Professionals Month 2026 · Live working session

Running the Business on AI

Our community has rarely gotten to be early. To the capital, to the networks, to the technology waves that built other people's wealth. AI is the next wave, and this time the door is open. This is a working session, live and in the room, where you watch real work get handed to AI and leave knowing exactly how to do it in your own world.

Registration required · In-person seats are limited
LiveIn person, South Florida
StreamedJoin virtually from anywhere
3 hoursA working session, not a webinar
OctoberDate announced with the BPM schedule

Hosted by ICABA World Network · Presented by Charles Smart, MetAiBlock

1

Why walk into this room

Not for another definition of AI. You have heard those. This is about what happens after the demos end.

You have seen the demos. Monday, the work was still yours.

The gap between watching AI and being run by it is not talent. It is a build. Nobody showed you the build.

Your competitors are not smarter. They are wired differently.

The businesses pulling away right now did unglamorous groundwork first. You will see exactly what it was.

Being early is a choice this time.

Every wealth wave had a velvet rope. This one has a learning curve, and a learning curve can be climbed.

You are not behind because you do not use AI.
You are behind because you use it in a chat window.

Three hours in this room closes that gap: the proof, the plan, and the build, live.

2

The gap, in two numbers

Same AI. Same task. The only difference is the plumbing.

AI in a chat window

53%

of the task gets automated

AI wired into your systems

98.7%

of the same task gets automated

Nothing about the model changed. The plumbing did. (Anthropic Economic Index, June 2026)

82%

of mid-market companies now run AI in production

26%

say that use is governed

42%

have already had an AI incident

If you carry accountability inside an organization, the governance block of this session was built for you.

3

Who this session is for

Three kinds of leaders will be in the room. Each one leaves with what they came for.

The owner

  • Runs the business, wears six hats
  • Wants leverage this week
  • The live builds are for you

The executive

  • Pulls a budget, answers for outcomes
  • Needs a rollout legal and the board can live with
  • The map and governance blocks are for you

The professional

  • Knows AI decides the next decade of their career
  • Done with surface-level tips
  • All of it is for you
4

The framework: five stages, in order

This is why most AI efforts stall. People start at stage five. The session walks the whole ladder, and you will know what each rung asks of your organization.

STAGE 1

Your data

Where the truth about your business actually lives, and what shape it is in.

Skip it: AI guesses.
STAGE 2

Your systems

The tools where work happens, and whether they can talk to anything.

Skip it: AI stays in the chat box.
STAGE 3

Your workflows

The repeatable work, defined step by step, so it can be handed off.

Skip it: nothing to hand AI.
STAGE 4

Governance

What legal needs, where your data goes, who answers when AI is wrong.

Skip it: you become the 42%.
STAGE 5

Integration

AI wired into the first four. This is where work starts leaving your plate.

Start here: it collapses.
5

How the three hours run

Every block does a job. No prior technical skill needed.

Open

The gap, live

  • A working AI system answers one real business question across six connected systems, on screen
  • Then the numbers behind why most AI use delivers half of what it could
Hour 1

The map

  • The five stages, taught as how to do it without failing
  • Who has to be in the room, what skipping costs, what failure looks like
  • The governance block: what to tell legal, IT, and the board
Hour 2

The live build

  • Real attendee workflows, solved on screen in real systems
  • Every decision narrated as it happens
  • Everyone follows on a guided track: free account, browser, nothing installed
Hour 3

Your Monday morning

  • Your own assessment report, read together, live
  • Your implementation blueprint for your own organization
  • Questions, next steps, and the door forward
6

We run your assessment together, live

Not homework you forget. In the room, on your phone, in minutes. You leave holding your own answers.

Click one link

In the room or on the stream. Works on a phone.

Answer honestly

Short questions about how your work actually runs today.

Your report appears

Live, personal, yours to keep.

Your #1 workflow, named

The one thing in your world most worth fixing first, and what leaving it broken costs.

This is the kind of assessment usually delivered inside a paid engagement

You will do it live, together, and walk out with the result in hand. Then we build the session's last hour around what the room's reports actually say.

7

What you walk away with

Not notes. Working assets. Yours whether or not we ever speak again.

📊 Your personal readiness report

Generated live in the session from your own answers. Names your #1 workflow, prices what leaving it broken costs, flags where you are exposed.

🧭 Your implementation blueprint

Not a generic plan. The step-by-step path for putting AI to work inside your own organization: what to do first, who to involve, what to skip.

🛡️ The governance one-pager

What to tell legal, what happens to your data, who is responsible when AI gets it wrong. Forward it to whoever needs to say yes.

🤖 A working AI agent

Every registrant gets a ready-to-use AI agent built for the load every professional carries: communication and administration. Set it up once and it starts working.

8

This is not a first performance

Rooms where this work has already been taught: expo stages, executive workshops, and cohorts across the U.S. and the Caribbean.

Charles Smart presenting on the Show Floor Theater stage at the International Franchise Expo

International Franchise Expo, New York. Show Floor Theater main stage.

Charles Smart presenting at the Franchise Expo Theater

Franchise Expo Theater. Teaching emerging technology to business owners.

Workshop cohort with JAMPRO in Jamaica

JAMPRO, Jamaica. Workshop cohort, international trade and investment agency.

9

Who is teaching this

Charles Smart · Founder, MetAiBlock

Charles helps businesses turn AI into results. Before founding MetAiBlock he spent years inside large enterprises doing the work this session teaches: GDPR readiness across all of Carnival's brands, and AI governance frameworks for organizations including Macy's, CVS, and Maersk. Today he builds AI systems that run inside real companies: their data, their customer systems, their daily operations.

He also runs his own company the way this session describes. The demonstration that opens the event is not staged. It is the system he works in every day.

Enterprise governance background Working AI systems, live in businesses now Teaches from real builds, not theory
10

Part of Black Professionals Month

October is Black Professionals Month, a global initiative of the ICABA World Network built on three pillars: showcasing Black excellence, advancing wealth creation, and elevating leadership presence.

Why this session sits on the BPM calendar

Excellence in this decade includes knowing how to put AI to work.

Most AI events tell you what AI is. This one shows you how to make it yours: the groundwork, the governance, and the build, live. That is a wealth-creation conversation and a leadership conversation, and that is why it belongs in this month.