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From idea to impact: Inside Adyen’s 24-hour AI hackathon
Across time zones and cultures, 200+ Adyen’ers in 60+ teams built real-world AI solutions during our first in-person, 24-hour Global AI Hackathon.
On January 22, the sun never set on our engineering spirit. Across cultures and time zones, over 200 Adyen’ers, divided into more than 60 teams, hacked through the night to build solutions to real problems for our merchants and our teams.
A continuous drive to reinvent the wheel and build what's next has always motivated Adyen's engineers. So it was only fitting that a group of Adyen’ers across the organization saw an opportunity to go beyond just talking about the potential of Generative AI: They wanted to see what happens when we give our engineers the keys to the sandbox. So they created Adyen’s first in-person, 24-hour Global AI Hackathon.
The goal was simple: Use AI to make things better, specifically focusing on two areas:
Merchant impact: Build AI solutions that create simpler, more effective journeys for our merchants.
Work smarter: Use AI to remove manual tasks, making our daily work faster and more efficient.
Leonard Galesky, a Staff Engineer and one of the hackathon's organizers, wanted the event to highlight the excitement of AI exploration. “Giving everyone a high-velocity space to hack with AI tools unlocks new business wins and a totally new way of thinking for the team.”
Here’s how it worked
Anchored by our Adyen way of engineering and our Formula, 60 teams across 6 offices identified challenges within their solution and set out to solve it for the long term. The organizers provided participating teams with Windsurf credits and LLM access - meaning the tools they needed to move from “idea” to “prototype” in a single day.
To win, teams needed to submit their finished prototype by 9AM the following day. A group of judges across the Tech organization then reviewed every single project and selected the winners. They assessed each project on its ability to benefit all, its path to production, and how well it solved known pain points for the long term.
Members from our São José dos Campos Brazil team hacking late into the night.
“I was going through the submissions and I must say, I was impressed. There were so many projects submitted, and a great number of them focused on solving real world problems. Maybe I'm biased but I think this was one of our best hackathons yet,” said Ignacio Jimenez Pi, SVP of Engineering, and the Global Leadership team Hackathon sponsor.
A truly global effort
Every office found its own way to fuel the 24-hour sprint. From early-morning builds in Singapore and Zumba in Bengaluru, to 24-hour hacking and Mario Kart speed runs in Amsterdam, teams around the world continued to build with momentum. And between Madrid’s Office Olympics, São José dos Campos’s mechanical keyboard build, and Chicago’s coffee-fueled scavenger hunt, the energy stayed high until the very last line of code was written.
Team Bengaluru keeping the energy high with games in-between hacking.
“Throughout the day, pictures kept rolling in from around the world. From Amsterdam, we woke up to a buzz already going in Singapore and Bengaluru, and by evening a wave of energy came in from Chicago and São Paulo. It really makes you appreciate how global this company is,” said Bjorn van Dijkman, Data Engineer, and one of the organizers.
At the end of the hackathon, we had a total of 57 projects submitted and judged. And after an in-depth judging process, we had three winning groups across the globe: A team from Amsterdam, one in Singapore, and another in Madrid.
The winning team in Amsterdam.
“The most rewarding part of the Global AI Hackathon was the cross-team collaboration. It enabled us to move fast and seamlessly embed a new idea into our existing ecosystem. Watching that collective effort translate into a tangible improvement in our platform was incredibly energizing,” said Madalina Dinga, Senior Software Engineer, and one of the winners from the Amsterdam group.
What’s next?
A hackathon is only as good as what happens after the deadline. These projects now have clear roadmaps, and the GenAI Platform team will host a series of “From Hack to Product” sessions to help every participating team get production-ready.
“What struck me most wasn't the 373M tokens burned or the 200K API calls. It was watching people get completely absorbed in building something they were really passionate about,” said Hanna van der Vlis, AI Research Engineer, and one of the organizers. “This wasn't just about the code. It was about creating space for ideas that might not surface in the usual flow of work,” she added.
Here at Adyen, our engineering team is driven by a passion for solving real-world problems and advancing the fintech industry. We're proud of what we've accomplished, but the most exciting part is knowing that we're just getting started.
