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A Proven Process of Digital Transformation Consulting and Innovative Solutions

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Our AI Readiness Score helps leaders quickly identify gaps in governance, security, data readiness, and organizational preparedness before they become compliance, operational, or reputational risks.

Kona Kai is Hawaiian for wind and sea—change agents that have incredible impact together. Our name represents the unique way we partner with clients to dismantle the chaos, analyze the pain points, and discover practical solutions that unleash powerful change.


1) Collaboration. The most productive working relationships are built on a foundation of trust, so we work hard to build it from day one. Targeting key resources from IT, business operations, and end-user groups in our delivery model, we help teams break out of their silos to speak the same language and share the same vision.


2) Focused Execution. From sprints to marathons, movement requires energy. Nothing motivates action better than well-articulated goals and a clear roadmap of how to get there. Our delivery model focuses on milestones, so nothing feels unattainable and everything aligns to program goals. Along the way, team members are encouraged and empowered to complete tasks and stay on track.


3) Empowerment. Pulling together only happens when people know they can make a difference and want to be part of a winning team. So we leverage your team as a key component of our delivery team, developing capabilities, increasing capacities, and ensuring enablement of every team member. 


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Change is Evolution

Over 50% of our clients retain our services for multiple engagements, building relationships that last years.

Our Partnerships

Experienced solution consultants bringing industry leading transformation to our clients.

Since our inception in 2006, we’ve helped large and small clients improve core operations, customer service, and performance. We’ve done this through a tried-and-true delivery model that engages our clients with direct participation, ultimately enabling them to become self-sustaining. Some engagements simply require process reengineering... some refinement of existing technical assets. But some require investment in new technologies to achieve desired outcomes. We are proud to have these partnerships without bias. Bringing these, and other industry leading technologies to our clients when necessary. 


Pega Partner

We help clients transform digitally to improve human connections and optimize business performance. 

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Our Expertise and Success is Proven

Kona Kai evaluated our credit card processing, assessed solutions, and helped implement a 3rd-party hosted solution. Results: Solution fully integrated with accounts receivables and delivered via inter/intranet integration. Reduced merchant charges to return better margin to customer payments. Achieved PCI Compliance.


Large-Scale Food Distributor


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After assessing enrollment and billing operations, numerous issues were identified within the systems and support of these functions. Kona Kai led systems and support re-engineering efforts. Results: Streamlined business operations, implemented foundational billing audits, and exception handling systems, procedures, and disciplines.


Healthcare Provider


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Kona Kai validated the business model created to acquire investment funding. They revised revenue assumptions, churn forecasts, subscriber acquisition costs, and distribution strategy and costs. Results: Helped secure $27M in funding in initial investment round. Then retained to review and select core support systems for billing, network operations, service provisioning, and call center support.


Wireless Startup


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Industry Insights

Explainable AI Is the Adoption Strategy Health Payors Are Missing

By Paul Benvenuto • September 30, 2026
Explainable AI (XAI) means an AI system can give a clear, traceable reason for a specific decision, not just a probability value.

What Happened at Dreamforce 2026?

By Carly Whitte • September 19, 2026
Dreamforce always offers a glimpse into where enterprise technology is heading. This year, the message is especially clear: AI is moving from experimentation into the systems, workflows, and decisions that power everyday business. Here are five developments the Kona Kai team is watching closely: 1. AI agents are taking on more meaningful work Agentforce continues to evolve beyond simple tasks. Salesforce’s newest agents are designed to pursue longer-term goals, learn new skills, collaborate with other agents, and handle more complex work across sales, service, commerce, and workforce operations. 2. Salesforce is building AI specifically for CRM reasoning One of the biggest announcements is Koa, Salesforce’s first CRM reasoning model, developed with NVIDIA. Koa is purpose-built to help agents reason through complex, multistep enterprise workflows using nearly three decades of Salesforce CRM intelligence. 3. AIforce is taking Salesforce beyond the traditional CRM interface Salesforce introduced AIforce , a new live interface layer that essentially makes Salesforce’s data, workflows, business logic, permissions, security, and governance available within the AI tools where people are already working. That means employees and AI agents can interact with Salesforce capabilities through experiences like Claude, Slack, and custom AI interfaces without always having to work directly inside the traditional Salesforce UI. AIforce is launching with Claudeforce, Slackforce, and Agentforce Coworker. For enterprises, that could fundamentally change how employees interact with CRM while making strong data architecture, permissions, and governance even more important. 4. Slack is becoming a true AI workspace Salesforce continues to position Slack as a place where people, agents, enterprise data, and workflows come together. Instead of AI existing as a separate tool, the goal is to bring intelligence and actions directly into the conversations where work is already happening. 5. Governance is becoming part of the AI infrastructure As agents become more autonomous and Salesforce capabilities become available across more interfaces, trust and governance have to evolve with them. It reinforces something we talk about often at Kona Kai: successful AI adoption depends on more than deploying the technology. Organizations need the right governance, people, data, and processes around it. Our biggest takeaway The conversation is shifting from “What can AI do?” to “How do we operationalize it responsibly across the enterprise?” The announcements coming out of Dreamforce show just how quickly the technology is evolving. For organizations, the opportunity now is to make sure their strategy, systems, data, and people are ready to evolve with it.

The AI Skills Gap Isn't Going to Close on Its Own

By Paul Benvenuto • August 19, 2026
AI is changing workforce training from a one-time project into a continuous business capability. For decades, enterprise technology transformations have followed a predictable pattern. A new system is implemented, then employees learn how to use it. Productivity dips for a while, then recovers as the organization adapts. Whether it was a CRM implementation, ERP modernization, a claims platform replacement, or a core banking upgrade, the skills gap eventually disappeared because the technology itself stopped changing. AI is different. Unlike traditional enterprise software, AI capabilities continue to evolve after implementation. New models are released, AI agents become more capable, and workflows change faster than most organizations can retrain employees. The result is a workforce that isn't simply learning a new system, but continuously adapting to one. That fundamentally changes how organizations should think about workforce readiness. Recent research from the World Economic Forum and Microsoft's Work Trend Index suggests many organizations already recognize the challenge. Are enterprises doing enough to prepare for a skills gap that may never close? AI Changes the Rules for Workforce Training Traditional enterprise software had a finish line. Once employees learned the new system, their knowledge remained valuable for years. Training programs could be planned, measured, completed, and archived because the technology itself remained relatively stable. AI doesn't offer that stability. Employees who learned effective prompting techniques six months ago may now be using AI agents. Teams that started with document generation may now be automating entire workflows. Capabilities continue to expand, changing what effective work looks like almost as quickly as organizations can document it. That means workforce readiness can no longer be viewed as a milestone that follows implementation, as it needs to become part of day-to-day operations. The AI Skills Gap Doesn't End After Go-Live The challenge isn't simply that AI is changing jobs. It's that AI itself keeps changing. Foundation models continue to improve. New copilots are released. AI agents take on increasingly sophisticated tasks. Features that didn't exist six months ago become standard workflow tomorrow. Employees aren’t learning one “system” because they need to continuously adapt to new capabilities. Someone who learned the most effective way to use AI six months ago may already be working differently today. Traditional training models weren't designed for that pace of change. AI Is Reshaping the Workforce Faster Than Organizations Can Respond The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025 highlights just how significant this challenge has become.