Informatica Bets on Generative AI at Annual Hackathon

Generative AI is transforming industries at an unprecedented pace, delivering major benefits and urging leaders to expedite their data readiness to harness AI effectively across their enterprises. Using technology in innovative ways is part of Informatica's DNA and integral to our culture. The company's well-earned success has come from its employees and their curiosity.

Last week, more than 650 Informaticans, spanning our engineering and product teams, as well as  other cross-functional members/experts demonstrated their technical proficiency by participating in the company's annual hackathon. For the past 12 years, Informatica has hosted a company-wide hackathon with wide-ranging themes to nurture the spirit of innovation. This year's highly anticipated event, "HackAIthon" focused on the race for generative AI and fueling AI innovation.

With the launch of CLAIRE® GPT this year, it is no surprise that the focus of this year's hackathon was artificial intelligence. Informaticans created over 200+ complex projects focused on leveraging Informatica's powerful AI platforms. The participants were asked to tackle problems in one of four categories: product innovation, aspiring for the future, process/productivity improvement and cost optimization. 

Informatica has a robust artificial intelligence strategy – providing generative AI solutions like CLAIRE® GPT and CLAIRE® copilot embedding AI into our data management platform, the Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC), to improve productivity. Hackathon projects tackled both umbrellas, looking to lead this technology into new frontiers.

True to the spirit of the hackathon, teams engaged in rapid design and development of innovative solutions over two days and presented their products to a panel of 15+ product leaders, including myself.

Their hackathon projects were assessed based on five criteria: innovation, business value, prototype for demonstration, user experience and presentation. Informaticans produced a diverse set of use cases throughout the competition. This year, two teams, with participants across the globe, took home the top prize.  

One of the winning teams, "Text Chaos to Structured Gold," leveraged a large language model (LLM) to process unstructured data and turn it into a more accessible format. This project was aimed at helping customers process their data even quicker.

During their presentation, team members noted how this product would help customers extract insights from data faster. This will optimize customers' productivity, allowing them to thrive on Informatica's products. 

The other winner was “Doc(AI)ditor”, an AI-powered document editor designed to streamline internal documentation procedures. In the teams’ research submission, project leaders say this tool can save up to 50% of time when it comes to the technical documentation revision process. 

Teams developed creative solutions designed to in-part inspire Informatica's product portfolio. This year, we launched an internal tool called Doc-GPT, designed to assist employees in locating information from internal program documentation. This idea came from last year's hackathon. The process is now a part of CLAIRE® GPT as well. 

To Informaticans, the hackathon is more than the sum of its parts. Employees look forward to it every year and not just to develop products and win awards. Participants said they learned more about artificial intelligence through this immersive experience than they would in a classroom.

Before the hackathon, project leads led a series of immersive webinars for Informaticans to learn from. The goal enables Informaticans, both technical and non-technical, on how Informatica leverages AI and how they can, too. More than 200 employees joined each webinar, showcasing our team's innate curiosity.

The hackathon strengthened bonds across Informatica's network of worldwide offices. The end goal is to generate participation across the globe and in different departments, foster creativity and collaboration and have fun doing it.

Even coworkers who knew each other before the competition said their time in the hackathon helped strengthen bonds. Many members of the winning team, "Text Chaos to Structured Gold," work together as a part of their primary roles. They say the hackathon was a great team-building exercise, "We enjoyed working and learning together just as much as we enjoyed winning," said Hemalatha Narendrababu, a project team member.

Organizations can expedite innovation by encouraging experimentation and continuous learning safely and securely so employees can develop robust solutions catalogs that meet today's needs and tomorrow's trends. With these innovative use cases and riding on the waves of generative AI, we at Informatica will be able to do good for each other and our customers.

To learn more about Informatica's AI solutions, visit www.informatica.com/AI.