This playbook shows how organizations run AI hackathons as a repeatable program: which play fits your goal, what to measure, and how to report the impact to leadership.

AI adoption stalls when people read about a tool instead of building with it. A hackathon closes that gap fast to put developers, employees, or customers hands-on with real models and APIs, and producing working prototypes in days instead of months. 

What's in the playbook:

• Three proven plays for running AI-focused hackathons—public, internal, and customer—including which one fits your goal and audience
• Example AI hackathon themes to jumpstart planning your next event, from internal tooling challenges to customer-facing builds
• Outcomes and KPIs for measuring AI adoption and impact, so results can be reported in terms that leadership tracks
• Case studies and ideas from real hackathons run on Devpost, the platform behind 80% of the world's AI hackathons

Why AI hackathons work

Hackathons are a strategic tool for driving AI adoption among dev communities, internal teams, and enterprise customers. They create a structured, time-boxed environment for the kind of experimentation that doesn't happen inside a normal sprint. 

"Hackathons are critical for experimentation because you're able to set up guardrails and do things that you can't otherwise do in your core work." — Neta Retter, Director of Innovation Programs, Okta

That holds whether you're running a public hackathon to reach developers, an internal hackathon to build AI literacy across your workforce, or a customer hackathon to embed your platform into a customer's stack. 

From strategy to execution

A playbook can tell you which play to run, but it can't run the event for you. Devpost is the platform behind 80% of the world's AI hackathons, handling registration, project submissions, and judging for public, internal, and customer events alike. 

Download the AI hackathon playbook to get the three plays, example themes, KPI framework, case studies, and more.