AI is transforming the way today’s small and mid-sized businesses operate. Acumatica understands the power of practical AI as we work to supply businesses with compelling  solutions—like anomaly detection, intelligent assistants, and automated processes—that help them thrive in today’s digital world.

We also recognize the importance of developing these new capabilities in a responsible way. That’s why we created our Principles of Innovation, which, simply put, is our commitment to delivering AI capabilities that address our customers’ real-world challenges.

As Acumatica’s Chief Product Officer Ali Jani explains, “Acumatica will take a pragmatic approach that considers what is good and appropriate for our customers and is guided by clear principles that will direct our product development into the future. Acumatica will develop AI capabilities in a way that is responsible, practical, and valuable.”

This is especially relevant as AI innovation will be a key theme throughout our upcoming Acumatica Summit 2026 (January 25-28, Seattle Convention Center—Summit Building) and especially during Hackathon 2026 (Saturday, January 24 at 12:00 PM PST through Sunday, January 25 at 2:30 PM).

The theme for Hackathon 2026? You guessed right — AI.

AI at Acumatica Hackathon 2026

Historically, Hackathon has been one of our most well-attended and highly lauded Summit events, and according to Laura Carpenter, Consultant, NextStep Technology Advisors, there’s good reason for its continued popularity.

“It challenges you to expand your horizons and to do new things that you might not be comfortable with as well as to learn about parts of the system that you didn’t know before,” she says.

We couldn’t agree more, and during last year’s Hackathon, we expanded horizons even further, asking participants to let their creative juices flow outside of any specific theme or focus area. The 14 teams made up of customers, implementation partners, marketing experts, product managers, developers, system engineers, work process experts, and more took the reins of creativity into their own hands and came up with amazingly unique, user-friendly applications for the Acumatica platform.

It was a huge success, and we expect the same genius-level applications to emerge from this year’s Hackathon participants, whose applications will once again be judged on creativity, completeness, technical difficulty, usefulness, and presentation quality. However, this year we’re applying a bit more focus by centering the theme around AI and requesting attendees code a majority of their customizations using an AI model.

We have no doubt that our Acumatica Hackathoners will rise to the task and produce truly mind-blowing apps that will help companies across industries grow and thrive in our competitive marketplace. And here’s some good news: Hackathon participants will get to leverage Acumatica’s innovative AI tools, which include Acumatica’s new AI Studio!

For those unfamiliar with our AI Studio, Mike Shchelkonogov, founder and Chief Technology Officer at Acumatica, defines it for us:

“AI Studio is a part of Acumatica’s low-code/no-code customization framework, enabling users to define AI workflows for specific, prescribed scenarios. These workflows address complex processes that require detailed instructions, eliminating the need for users to manually provide these instructions every time. The prescribed scenarios can include anything from generating support case closure notes based on the case activity history to creating a website description for an item using a predefined template.”

How Hackathon Works

Summit attendees who sign up for Hackathon will be placed in teams made up of a variety of Acumatica Community members. Product experts, consultants, business users, UI/UX thinkers, project managers, and process-minded contributors all play a valuable role in building impactful solutions.

“Acumatica’s Summit Hackathon has always been about bringing people together, regardless of technical background,” explains Vlad Sushkin, Acumatica’s Developer Relationships Manager. “You don’t need to be a developer to participate. Some of our most successful teams are the ones that combine business expertise, creativity, UX thinking, and technical skills. We want everyone to feel welcome and empowered to contribute.”

It’s an event that caters to the strengths of all who participate, and as a small shoutout to our Developer MVPs, we will continue balancing teams so that technical and non-technical participants can collaborate effectively. This helps ensure teams have the support they need while still welcoming fresh perspectives and new voices.

Before Summit begins, Hackathon participants are encouraged to cultivate app ideas so that when the teams come together on Saturday morning, they’re ready to work together to determine which idea will move forward. From there, teams will work hard to bring their application to life with the help of their own Acumatica Subject Matter Expert (SME). Rest assured, however, that Hackathon is not an all work, no play event. Food, beverages, and laughs are staples of the Hackathon agenda.

At midnight, teams are required to take off their thinking caps and go rest before returning at 10:00 AM Sunday morning so they can finish up their applications and prepare their presentations for the judges. Our expert panel of judges includes Acumatica CTO Mikhail Shchelkonogov; CPO Ali Jani; Chief Engineering Officer Miten Mehta; VP of Platform Engineering Andrew Boulanov; VP of Professional Services Todd Kuhns; and Jeremy Larsen, VP Product Management Construction and Professional Services.

After team presentations have taken place, the judges will deliberate and then announce the top three winning teams (a little insider tip: sometimes a good presentation is what helps your team hit top three). Excitingly, the winners of each team will receive a cash prize and will see their names added to the coveted Acumatica Developer Network Hackathon Cup!

AI Transforms Hackathon

By combining the transformative power of AI with our collaborative, interactive, and fun-filled Hackathon, we’re setting the Acumatica Community up for impact and success. The AI-focused applications and technological advancements we anticipate coming out of Hackathon will provide great ideas and concepts to help businesses seeking ways to become more efficient, productive, and profitable.

“When I come [to Hackathon], I learn so much from so many of these people that it’s a lot of fun,” says Jennifer Douglas, IT Manager for Tobacco Rag Processors and Wind River Tobacco Company. “It was the best decision I made, and I absolutely encourage everybody [to attend].”

We second that! And because last year’s event was our biggest Hackathon to date, we’re looking forward to breaking that record again, so sign up for Acumatica Summit 2026 and register for Hackathon today.

To learn more, contact the event team at support@acumaticaevents.com.  Any questions about Acumatica’s cloud ERP software, about being a part of the Acumatica Developer community, and about the Acumatica Community resources available to members can be answered by our experts.