PayPal AI Hackathon

Build What's Next with PayPal and AI is a global online hackathon run by PayPal and managed by Devpost. It invites developers, designers, founders and students to create something new using PayPal and AI. There are no tracks or set problem statements. You could build an agent, an app, an automation, a new payment experience or a business tool. The one requirement is that your project meaningfully uses both PayPal and AI. You can enter solo or with a team, and you can start fresh or meaningfully advance an existing project. You build with the free PayPal sandbox and any AI tool you like. Sponsor tools from AG Grid, APIMatic, Postman, Render, Zapier and others are optional. Entrants must be above the age of majority where they live. The hackathon is open to most countries, but residents of Brazil, Quebec, Russia, Crimea, Cuba, Iran and North Korea cannot take part. There is USD 67,500 in cash prizes. First place wins USD 12,000, second USD 8,000 and third USD 5,000. Several special awards of USD 5,000 reward creativity, impact, demo delivery and agentic commerce, and sponsor prizes add more. Submissions close on 12 November 2026 at 12:00pm PST. Register on Devpost, then submit a working project with a description, a public open-source repository and a demo video under 3 minutes. A good first step is to set up a PayPal Developer sandbox account, which takes about 5 minutes, and watch the recorded build session.