ABBYY Hackathon Winners Demo the Power of Document AI, AI Agents and GenAI to Solve Enterprise Challenges

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 22, 2025--

ABBYY hosted its third annual AI Pulse Developer Conference and Hackathon July 9-10 where 35 entrants registered to build their most innovative solutions using Document AI with AI agents and generative AI technologies to solve real-world enterprise problems. Four teams wowed the more than 300 attendees winning categories for Best Overall App, Best Use of an ABBYY Product, Best Integration of Third-Party AI, and an honorary mention of a Student Excellence Award.

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The judges for the hackathon were ABBYY executives Paula Sanders, SVP of Pre and Post Sales, Neil Murphy, Chief Revenue Officer and Bruce Orcutt, Chief Marketing Officer.

“When we kicked off DevCon three years ago, we wanted to build a global community where developers could challenge the status quo and reimagine what’s possible with AI and documents and cure the biggest headaches related to document processing,” commented Murphy. “This year’s solutions were nothing short of inspiring - turning complex challenges like healthcare policy interpretation and expense compliance into smart, intuitive experiences. What excites me most is how far we’ve come, with ABBYY investing in new R&D hubs, Centers of Excellence, and the tools to empower this growing ecosystem of innovators. We’re just getting started.”

The winner for Best Overall App was Team Deloitte, consisting of Kaustubha Uday Vaidya, Rithi M, S Shanthaseelan and Md. Shahid Akhtar. Their solution, Spend Guard, automated the scanning, interpretation and validation of business expense receipts. They leveraged ABBYY Vantage for data extraction and agentic AI using Gemini to ensure policy compliance by instantly flagging non-compliant expenses and reasons for flagging. Their app accelerated expense claim processing, reduced manual effort, and helped organizations minimize errors and policy violations.

Commented Rithi of Team Deloitte, “Participating in the ABBYY Developer Conference was an incredible opportunity to push the boundaries of what’s possible with AI-driven document processing. The energy, innovation, and support from the ABBYY community made this an unforgettable experience.”

Winning Best Use of an ABBYY Product was Team McKinsey led by Sathish Kumar Murugan who developed a cutting-edge solution designed to break language barriers in global document processing through the power of AI. The Smart Translator used ABBYY Vantage to intelligently extract data from scanned or image-based documents and integrated ChatGPT for instant, context-aware translation. It eliminated the need for manual data entry and translation, saving time and reducing errors and empowering teams to work faster, smarter, and more collaboratively—regardless of language or document format.

Sathish stated, "Participating in the ABBYY hackathon was an inspiring journey of innovation and collaboration. Building Smart Translator showed us how AI and intelligent OCR can come together to solve real-world challenges with speed and accuracy.”

The Best Integration of Third-Party AI combined ABBYY Vantage and OCR and Document Skills with a variety of AI tools including spaCY, OpenAI Embeddings, ChromaDB, LangChain Agents and Gradio. Created by Team Telstra with Krishna Kumar S and Madhu Shankar, their Insurance AIdvisor was an agentic AI assistant that simplified health insurance policies so users would no longer be surprised by denied claims or financial shock due to not understanding complex jargon or fine print.

Madhu Shankar of Team Telstra commented, “We were proud to be part of AI Pulse, a platform that highlighted the transformative potential of agentic AI. ABBYY’s strategic evolution within this forward-looking ecosystem—by empowering Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) tools—positions it as a key enabler in the development of autonomous, decision-capable AI systems.”

The AI Pulse Developer Conference was also a forum for students to take what they learned in the classroom and apply it to a real-world scenario.

Earning an honorary mention for a Student Excellence Award was Team CMRIT with Sarvottam Bhagat and Deepankar Sharma from CMR Institute of Technology.

Said Sarvottam Bhagat from Team CMRIT, “Participating in the ABBYY Developer Conference Hackathon was a phenomenal learning experience. It pushed us to creatively integrate multiple AI agents with ABBYY’s powerful document processing tools live and in real time. We competed with companies like Tech Mahindra, Wipro, Deloitte, and others. We learned a lot and connected with some truly amazing people along the way.”

Their SILO AI app was a unified document automation toolkit that simplified and accelerated document-heavy workflows. It analyzed various document types such as invoices, KYC and contracts, then suggested the most suitable ABBYY model for processing, and routed the processed data through an n8n workflow, delivering results via Gmail and Slack through an MCP server.

To learn more about combining IDP and large language models (LLMs), download the playbook, “Next-Generation Document Automation: Combining Document AI and Generative AI,” at https://www.abbyy.com/resources/playbook/building-intelligent-document-workflows/.

To hear more insights from the intelligent automation industry’s biggest influencers, subscribe to the AI Pulse podcast at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcawcg-HXtXeE7L_eP5yIE8vg64jhaUXj and AI Pulse e-newsletter at https://www.abbyy.com/subscribe/.

About ABBYY

ABBYY uses purpose-built AI to transform data and workflows from business-critical processes to accelerate decisions and drive better outcomes. More than 10,000 customers, including many Fortune 500 companies, rely on ABBYY’s industry-leading Process AI and Document AI to accelerate customer experiences, operational excellence, and achieve a competitive advantage. ABBYY is a global company with headquarters in Austin, Texas and offices in 13 countries. For more information, visit www.abbyy.com/company and follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

ABBYY can either be a registered trademark or a trademark and can also be a logo, a company name (or part of it), or part of a product name of ABBYY group companies and may not be used without consent of its respective owners.

AI Pulse by ABBYY Developers Conference was held July 9-10, 2025 in Bengaluru, India. It included a hackathon showcasing the power of Document AI, AI Agents and GenAI to solve enterprise challenges. Winners included Best Overall App, Best Use of an ABBYY Product, Best Integration of Third-Party AI, and an honorary mention of a Student Excellence Award.

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — The Trump administration on Tuesday designated another Latin American drug cartel as a foreign terrorist organization, increasing financial pressure on its members and opening the door to potential military action against them.

The U.S. State Department said Clan del Golfo, which is based in Colombia, has been listed both as a foreign and a global terrorist group, calling it a “violent and powerful criminal organization” that uses cocaine trafficking to fund violent activities.

“Clan del Golfo is responsible for terrorist attacks against public officials, law enforcement and military personnel, and civilians in Colombia,” the statement said.

The designation comes after the Trump administration in September added Colombia to a list of nations failing to cooperate in the drug war for the first time in almost 30 years. It was a stinging rebuke to a traditional U.S. ally that reflects a recent surge in cocaine production and fraying ties between the White House and the country’s leftist president, Gustavo Petro.

The United States also sanctioned Petro in October over accusations that he had allowed drug cartels in the South American nation to “flourish” and export cocaine to the U.S. — accusations that he vehemently denied, arguing that Colombia is intercepting record levels of cocaine shipments without killing suspected smugglers.

With an estimated 9,000 fighters, Clan del Golfo is one of Colombia’s most powerful armed groups. Also known by its Spanish acronym AGC, the group evolved from right-wing paramilitary squads that fought Marxist guerillas in Colombia in the 1990s and 2000s.

A report published last year by the Human Rights Defender's Office, a public agency, said that AGC is present in about a third of Colombia's 1,103 municipalities, where it extorts local businesses and has also been accused of recruiting children.

Clan del Golfo has been involved in peace talks with Colombia’s government since September, which could lead to the disarmament of its fighters in exchange for reduced sentences for its leadership.

Earlier this month, the Colombian government and the AGC signed an agreement in Qatar, under which the group’s fighters as of next March will be allowed to gather in specially designated zones in northern and western Colombia where they will be free from prosecution, as peace talks continue. The agreement also states that the Colombian government will suspend any extradition of AGC leaders to the U.S. during negotiations.

Elizabeth Dickinson, a Colombia analyst at the International Crisis Group, said Tuesday's designation could be a message to the Colombian government to take a tougher stance against the group.

“The tensions between Colombia and Washington are at historic levels,” Dickinson said.

She added that while terrorist designations are usually meant to stop third parties from doing business with targeted groups, the designation against AGC could be more “symbolic” — and it will "give pause to Colombian authorities ... going forward.”

Colombia has also recently held peace talks with the National Liberation Army, also an organization designated as a terrorist group by the U.S., and in the past it struck a peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, while it was still designated as a terrorist group.

The designation does not provide the U.S. government with the immediate authority to conduct military strikes, although it enhances the legal framework for attacks against targeted groups to be carried out.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration designated Venezuelan gangs Tren de Aragua and Cartel de los Soles as foreign terrorist organizations, before launching strikes against alleged drug smuggling boats off the coast of Venezuela, whose legality has been questioned by U.S. lawmakers.

The Trump administration has also accused Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of sending drug shipments to the U.S.

And last week, Trump said Petro has been “fairly hostile” to the U.S. and that he was “going to have himself some big problems if he doesn’t wise up.”

President Donald Trump speaks during a Mexican Border Defense Medal presentation in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)