See how AI-powered hackathons break down technical barriers and speed up development.
AI is on everybody’s mind. The “innovate or die” mantra has taken on new meaning as businesses work to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) in their operations or build their own AI tools.
So, how are you incorporating it into yours? Innovation is at the heart of harnessing the power of AI—meaning it’s time to make time for creativity, problem-solving, and unique solutions. That’s where hackathons come in.
Hackathons are a business tool that make innovation a part of your company’s culture and help you crowdsource ideas. Whether you host an internal hackathon or a public one, you’ll be able to leverage the creativity of many and generate multiple use cases in a short period of time.
Hackathons have always brought people together to solve problems quickly, but AI integration is expanding what's possible. Here are five specific ways AI is improving hackathon experiences and outcomes:
What's different: AI hackathons remove technical barriers that kept non-developers on the sidelines.
Hackathons are known for being almost exclusively geared toward developers since they involve building some kind of software or application. AI changes that.
Non-technical participants can now build functional prototypes using AI coding assistants, no-code AI platforms, and generative AI tools.
If you’re hosting an internal employee hackathon, you can open it up to your entire organization and harness the problem-solving skills of teams who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to participate.
People with limited coding skills can use AI tools to do this type of work—meaning more participants, more projects submitted, and a higher likelihood of discovering an idea that could transform your business.
What’s different: AI tools handle complex data analysis that would normally require hours of manual work.
Experimentation is a big part of developing new software or applications. For hackathon participants, the time it takes for this type of work can be a huge constraint on the quality of their final projects.
With AI, instead of plugging into one API or data source, hackathon participants have an unlimited ability to crunch data. They can check multiple data sources, generate insights, and group data almost instantly using AI.
A note for companies holding internal hackathons: Be sure to provide guardrails that will allow teams to securely experiment with AI and large language models (LLMs) without risking accidentally releasing sensitive data.
Related reading: See how Okta securely provided teams an AI track in its internal hackathon.
{{callout-1}}
What’s different: Generative AI handles repetitive coding tasks, letting participants focus on creative problem-solving.
AI helps speed up work for participants so they can be more ambitious with projects and ultimately build higher-quality projects.
In particular, generative AI helps participants build functional prototypes and get a lot closer to a shippable finished product in a short period of time. AI tools can do repetitive, time-consuming tasks, freeing up participants' time for more innovative, high-value work.
A participant's creativity, rather than their ability or speed in writing code, determines the quality of hackathon projects. Essentially, AI allows participants to focus on how cool their idea is instead of getting bogged down by all the technical aspects required to build it.
What’s different: AI writing and image generation tools improve submission quality without requiring additional skills.
As a hackathon organizer, the last thing you want is for participants to spend hours developing an amazing project just to have it fall flat in their final submission.
If you’re hosting your AI hackathon on a platform like Devpost, the project description submissions will be crucial for you and your team during judging.
Creating a clear and detailed project description can take a long time for non-writers, which is where an AI writing assistant can help. With the right prompt, it can summarize the specific problem being solved, mention the key technologies used, and explain how the project solves the problem initially identified. That time can instead be spent on actually building the project.
Image generation tools can also be used to improve submissions. AI can quickly generate images showing something really specific or niche to the project, which will help improve the overall quality of the submission.
What’s different: AI assistants help participants explore more solution approaches and overcome creative blocks.
We could all use a little help when we’re about to tackle a problem. That’s especially true for hackathon participants under a deadline!
AI tools are a great way to kick off brainstorming. They often generate the ‘obvious’ solution, which helps people focus on more creative, bigger-picture thinking. Or, they might pull together ideas in a way that sparks something big.
The same is true for organizers. If you’re planning an AI innovation event and experiencing “blank page syndrome,” an AI tool can help get the ball rolling and generate possible topics. You can also use it to help you write your challenge description.
AI-enhanced hackathons deliver three main business advantages:
So, where do we go from here? With AI, we’re already seeing things move so quickly that it’s hard to keep up. AI hackathons help you harness that energy and use it to evolve your business.
Think of your hackathons as business tools that are improved by AI. The potential applications for AI and hackathons are endless, but it comes down to three things: more participants, higher quality projects, and an easier planning process for organizers.
Get started here and make innovation a key part of your business with hackathons.
