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Lehua AI specializes in helping businesses explore and implement customized AI solutions.
Derek Gabriel, the owner of Honolulu-based cybersecurity company Ignite Solutions Group, has launched a new business focused on artificial intelligence.
His new company, Lehua AI, specializes in helping businesses explore and implement customized AI solutions. As it states on its website, Lehua AI guides clients through “every step of your AI journey, from initial exploration to seamless implementation, ensuring that you harness the full potential of artificial intelligence to drive growth, efficiency and competitive edge.”
Gabriel told Pacific Business News that he was inspired to create the company after talking to Ignite customers and other business executives.
“I found that there was just a lot of uncertainty and confusion [about AI],” he said. “Business executives really want to take advantage of AI, but they … are just not sure how to get started. And so it really made sense to me that we should have that service.”
Lehua AI utilizes Microsoft AI tools, including Microsoft Copilot and Azure AI, and the company offers education, training and customization.
“Essentially, what we do is help them understand exactly what generative AI is and how can they take advantage of it. From that point, we help them see how it specifically fits into their business — because each business is unique in how they want to use it — and then we hold their hand through the implementation process,” he said.
Lehua AI launched in October, so Gabriel said that most of his client work is still in the early stages, but that many customers are already seeing “an enormous positive impact.”
“The businesses that we’ve worked with become more efficient. We’re seeing that their profitability is starting to increase,” he said.
Gabriel said that his clients span industries including law, nonprofits and finance. Clients are using AI, he said, to “speed up workflows” in areas such as managing paperwork, analyzing grant opportunities, summarizing financial transactions and more.
As an example, Gabriel said one way clients are using AI is to manage contracts. If, for instance, a client had an updated version of an 80-page contract to review, “traditionally that would have taken a lot of reading,” he said.
“Now they can use AI to compare documents and summarize those changes.”
Gabriel is a serial entrepreneur who has been working in tech in Hawaii for 20 years, dating back to 2005, when he founded an IT company. As technology evolved and he grew his scope of services, that original company eventually became Ignite Solutions Group, which he continues to run alongside Lehua AI.
While Gabriel said that a lot of businesses are fearful about AI, he feels that utilizing the technology will help all business continue to be competitive in a changing marketplace.
“This is a fantastic technology for businesses, and it actually makes small businesses more competitive,” he said. “Larger companies are always going to have bigger budgets, but smaller companies can get started with AI very easily and they can get started without a major capital outlay.
“At the end of the day, businesses aren’t going to have a choice,” he continued. “To remain competitive, they are going to have to take advantage of it.”
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