A small studio that builds before it advises.
Second Wave Technologies is a founder-led AI product and implementation studio in Honolulu. We run our own AI products, and we bring what we learn there to firms putting AI to work.
Chad Kumabe
Software architect and AI product builder. Chad built the method every engagement follows and stays accountable for the result, so what’s scoped on the first call is what gets delivered.
He has led AI research under a DoD SBIR Phase I award with a Hawaiʻi state match, and runs AiToVid, a live product that turns slide decks into narrated video.
He co-founded Second Wave in 2018. Earlier, as a software architect and technical lead, he led the architecture and user experience of LiveAction’s LiveNX network-management web client, ran his own software studio, Spilled Paint Studios, and was CIO of Yobu, a marketplace for small-business service providers. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington.
Connect on LinkedIn →Selected by Hawaiʻi Wave. Heard on HPR.
The first wave was demos. The second wave is real work.
The first wave of AI was exploration: demos, pilots and promises. Most firms have been through it. Plenty of people use ChatGPT or Copilot on their own, and very little of how the firm works has changed.
The second wave is where AI takes on real, repeatable work inside the tools a firm already uses, with a person still signing off. That's the part we work on.
Our advice comes from products we run ourselves.
- Live product
AiToVid.com
Turns slide decks into narrated video. Running it day to day keeps us honest about what AI takes in production: cost, failure modes and support.
- Applied R&D
SBIR research
Applied AI research under a DoD SBIR Phase I award and an HTDC Hawaiʻi state match.
- Open
Published research
Hands-on write-ups of what works and what doesn't, including the experiments that failed. Read the insights.
Five rules we don't bend.
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01
Off-the-shelf first
We start with the tools you already pay for. Custom code only when nothing else will do.
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02
Your accounts, your files
Everything we build lives in your accounts, under your access rules, and is yours to keep.
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03
A person signs off
Everything we build has a review step. AI drafts; your people decide.
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04
Measure it, or it didn't happen
Hours, turnaround and review rounds, before and after. If the numbers don't move, we say so.
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05
Say no when AI isn't the answer
Sometimes the fix is a template or a free tool. We'd rather tell you than sell you.
Based in Honolulu.
We're a Hawaiʻi company, and we treat every introduction as someone's reputation on the line, not just ours. We work with firms over video calls and in your shared folders, and we schedule around your time zone.
Want to see how it would work at your firm?
Tell us what's piling up. We'll reply with an honest read.