AI-Inspired Applications Raise the Bar at Acumatica Hackathon 2026

Acumatica Summit 2026 was one for the history books. Between the inaugural visit to our new host city, Seattle, and our boundary-breaking innovations, this year’s Summit broke the mold, and according to Acumatica’s Jim Desler in his recap of Summit 2026, that’s a good thing.

“By bringing Summit to Seattle and introducing our new, integrated AI-powered features, we did what we always do, and that’s shake up the status quo. Acumatica is an ERP industry disruptor who leads by example, offering an innovative, award-winning business management solution that consistently evolves to meet the progressive needs of our users.”

Whether small, medium, or enterprise-level, businesses operating in an ever-changing environment must adapt, and achieving adaptability is only possible when they implement an intuitive, affordable, and best-in-class technology, like Acumatica. During our annual Hackathon at Summit 2026, attendees had an opportunity to create an application that extends Acumatica’s capabilities even further, and this year’s event was like no other.

AI-Inspired Applications Raise the Bar (and a Few Eyebrows)

Last year’s Hackathon saw record-breaking participation, and we’re excited to announce that this year’s numbers once again set a new record! With 250 individuals signed up divided into 16 teams, Hackathon 2026 was off to a great start.

The teams, which are made up of customers, developers, implementation partners, marketing experts, product managers, work process experts, and more, got busy creating never-before-seen third-party applications for the Acumatica cloud xRP platform with the help of an Acumatica Subject Matter Expert (SME). However, unlike last year, where Hackathoners had free reign on what they could create, this year’s participants were asked to center their application design around AI and to code a majority of their customers using an AI model.

As expected, the teams rose to the challenge, developing eyebrow-raising AI-powered applications destined to make life easier for every Acumatica user. Also as expected, judging these applications and deciding who would nab the top three spots was a major challenge.

Based on the applications’ creativity, completeness, technical difficulty, usefulness, and presentation quality, the following three teams were crowned the winners of Acumatica Hackathon 2026:

First Place: Dictara

Ignacio Herranz García, Mike Gifford, Janani Fernando, Nadeesha Fernando, Scott Stilson, Dahr Hassinger, Steve Milner, Ben Bonifacio

Second Place: Bot the Difference

Third Place: Acumatica Go

Fourth Place (Bonus Prize): Elev8

Congratulations to these three teams for coming out on top in a very competitive event! In addition to being able to take pride in their win, each person on the winning teams will receive a cash prize ad well as see their names inscribed on our highly coveted Acumatica Developer Network Hackathon Cup.

Why Hackathon Participants Keep Coming Back for More

Hackathon is approximately 24 hours of collaboration, competition, and creativity all wrapped up in a fun-loving, supportive atmosphere (plus, there’s always delicious food and beverages available to keep energy levels and spirits high!). It’s an event in which we believe every Acumatica Community member should participate, and when they do, we know it will be an experience they’ll want to repeat.

That’s how it was for Robert Waite, Development Manager, Net at Work. Hackathon 2026 is his sixth Hackathon, and there are a few reasons why he returns.

“Hackathon is just a lot of fun, and this is a great place to network,” he says.

He also says there’s a lot of great learning that takes place. “Ultimately, you always get an opportunity to learn new technologies. We’re actively learning about AI Studio at this point, so we’re weaving that in, and we’re also exploring ways to pull in and use some MCT stuff and interface AI with Acumatica.”

As to what he’ll do with all the cloud ERP knowledge he’s taken in in the last 24 hours? “There’s going to be a lot of ways I can use that both for infrastructure and then also offer this sort of stuff up to clients. That’s what we do here. We learn and we learn a lot from others.”

And John, who once again had a great time at Hackathon, encourages more attendees to sign up for Hackathons to come. “Come and do Hackathon! This is a great opportunity to learn. We’ve had so many Acumatica all-stars that come and they become a part of the community here as a result of Hackathon. It’s a great way to engage with the Acumatica Community at large.”

Laura Carpenter, Consultant, DSD Business Systems, is another Acumatica Community member that invites people to participate in Hackathon. As a second-year Hackathon participant and as a woman in a male-dominated industry, she wants to see more women jumping in.

“Just try it! You’re going to be put on a team with people that can do the development if you’re not a developer, which I am not! Give it a try, especially as a woman in this industry, it’s important to learn and grow and be challenged and to support one another. I’m so excited that I have two other women on my team this year, so it’s super fun to have that female camaraderie.”

In fact, diversity was a key factor in her enjoyment of Hackathon 2026. “I loved that our team this year was diverse and that we all had our unique parts of the project. We’re each able to use our unique gifts and abilities to benefit the team as a whole. Sometimes it’s a struggle when a team is unbalanced with people, skill sets, and perspectives, but our team feels incredibly lucky to have each other.”

Johnsey Schiele, Accounting Specialist, Hana Technologies, also felt lucky about her team, but for her, Hackathon is a brand new experience. Hana Technologies just went live with Acumatica this year, and she couldn’t wait to get more familiar with its capabilities, so she joined Hackathon. Her wish to go deeper into Acumatica’s capabilities was helped along by being a part of a team of people who came from different roles and who brought unique skills to the table.

“We have someone else in accounting, someone from Ohio same as me, so that’s fun. We have two developers, we have business consultants, just a variety, so it’s fun to see everyone cooperating with different skill sets.”

She adds: “I do a lot of things [with Acumatica] back at Hana, so it’s great to get more familiar with things I haven’t done yet, so I’m talking to people more on the production side and doing things I haven’t done before.”

Like Robert and Laura, Johnsey believes participating in Hackathon can benefit everyone in the Community. “Don’t be afraid. This feels like a really safe, collaborative, fun space. I was really nervous coming in, but I’ve had a lot of encouragement, and it just feels really accessible to women and newcomers.”

Hackathon: Open to All

Acumatica Hackathon welcomes everyone and anyone in the Acumatica Community who wants to expand their cloud ERP knowledge, grow their business, and broaden their Community connections. It’s truly a special time of fellowship, teamwork, and good old fashioned competition!

Now, with Hackathon 2026 concluded, we’re revving up for next year’s event. Hackathon 2027 will return to the beautiful city of Seattle at the Seattle Convention Center, and we invite all Community members to give it a try. Until then, congratulations again to the winning Hackathon teams!

To learn more about Hackathon or about our modern cloud ERP software, contact our team at any time.