About the challenge

PayPal already moves money for millions of people and businesses, every day, all over the world. This hackathon is us opening that platform up and asking what happens when you put AI behind the wheel. New agents, new ways to pay and get paid, tools nobody's built yet. We want to see what you make of it.

AI is changing how people build, buy, sell, work, connect, and move money. Now it's your turn to imagine what comes next.

Build What's Next with PayPal and AI is a global online hackathon inviting developers, designers, founders, students, and builders to create something new using PayPal and AI.

There are no prescribed problem statements and no set of tracks. Build an agent, an app, an automation, a new payment experience, a business tool, a social product, or something we haven't thought of yet.

The only fundamental requirement: your project must meaningfully use both PayPal and AI.

Why Join?

Build something ambitious — Turn an idea into a working project using PayPal and AI.
Explore what’s next — Experiment with new ways people, businesses, and AI agents can interact with money and payments.
Win part of $69,750 in total prizes — Compete for overall prizes and special awards across creativity, impact, execution, and more.
Show what you can build — Put your project in front of PayPal judges, developers, and the wider hackathon community.
Learn by building — Explore PayPal APIs, AI tools, agents, automations, and emerging development workflows.
Build your way — Join individually or as a team, and start something new or meaningfully advance an existing project.

Get started

Get a PayPal Developer account (5 minutes)
Review example projects and brainstorm your own (30 minutes)

Webinars

Requirements

What to Build

Build or update an application that integrates the PayPal developer platform (using the free sandbox environment) along with an AI tool, model, or platform of your choice.

You may also use one of our sponsors' tools:

Note: PayPal will provide access to select AI sponsor tools that you are welcome to use, though using one of these partner tools is not required. Any AI tool works, as long as PayPal integration is central to the project.

Your project should:

Meaningfully integrate at least one PayPal technology, API, SDK, product, or developer capability
Meaningfully incorporate AI into the experience or functionality
Demonstrate a working prototype or proof of concept
Be sufficiently documented for the judges to understand and evaluate it
Comply with the Official Rules

Projects can be built individually or as a team. They can be new or existing projects, as long as you make meaningful progress on the project during the course of the hackathon.

What to Submit

Project - built with the required developer tools and meeting the Project Requirements above.
Text description - explain your project's features and functionality.
Functional demo - judges must be able to actually run or interact with a working build. Satisfy this with either:

Clear, complete setup and run instructions in your code repository, so judges can build and run it themselves, or
A hosted demo URL.
A design mockup, static prototype, or non-functional demo does not meet this requirement.

Tools - identify which tools were used and explain how the tools were used in your project.
Public code repository on GitHub

Must contain all source code, assets, and instructions needed to run the project.
Must be public and open source, with a license file visible at the top of the repo (in the About section).

Demo video

Under 3 minutes (judges aren't required to watch past that).
Must show the project functioning on the device it was built for.
Must be uploaded to YouTube, publicly visible, with the link on the submission form.
Must not include third-party trademarks or copyrighted music/material without permission.

Hackathon Sponsors

3 winners

Best Use of APIMatic

$1,000 in cash

Jo Franchetti
Developer Advocate - PayPal

Eddie Jaoude
Developer Advocate - PayPal

Marco Podien
Developer Advocate - PayPal

Karthik Ravi
Software Engineer - PayPal

Himraj Singh
Engineering Manager - PayPal

Nathaniel Olson
Senior Product Manager - PayPal

Sylwia Vargas
Senior Technical Community Manager - AG Grid

Ameer Hassan
Co-Founder - APIMatic

Mats Bryntse
CEO - Bryntum

Ignacio Valdez Bicard
Founding Engineer - Channel3

Carly Richmond
Senior Manager, Developer Advocacy - Elastic

Pooja Mistry
Sr. Developer Advocate - Postman

Shifra Williams
Founding Developer Relations Engineer - Render

Judging Criteria

Technological Implementation
How thoroughly and skillfully does the project use PayPal Developer Platform and AI tool(s)? Does the project reflect genuine effort and a working, non-trivial implementation?
Design
Does the project deliver a complete, coherent product experience — not just a technical proof of concept?
Potential Impact
Does the project make a credible, specific case for solving a real problem for a real audience — and does the solution actually address that problem based on what's demonstrated?
Innovation/Idea
How creative and novel is the concept and does the project differ from existing concepts?
Presentation
Does the video clearly demonstrate the project working end-to-end? Does the pitch communicate what problem is solved, who it's for, and why it matters? Is the overall presentation easy to follow?

Questions? Email the hackathon manager

Hackathon sponsors

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Online	Public
$67,500 in cash	123 participants