ABBYY wrapped up its third annual AI Pulse Developer Conference in Bengaluru, which brought together developers, engineers, business leaders and enthusiasts under one roof.
The event also featured a hackathon with 35 participants, who competed to develop innovative solutions by utilising ABBYY’s document processing technologies, while also integrating AI agents and various GenAI frameworks.
The hackathon drew participation from big consulting firms, tech companies and emerging talent from academic institutions—all competing across three categories.
The hackathon was evaluated by ABBYY’s senior leadership team, comprising of Paula Sanders, SVP of pre and post-sales; Neil Murphy, chief revenue officer; and Bruce Orcutt, chief marketing officer. They assessed solutions for their practical use and potential for business impact.
The team from Deloitte, consisting of Kaustubha Uday Vaidya, Rithi M, S Shanthaseelan and Md Shahid Akhtar, was adjudged as the winner in the ‘Best Overall App’ category. Their solution, called Spend Guard, automated the scanning, interpretation and validation of business expense receipts.

They leveraged ABBYY Vantage for data extraction and integrated agentic capabilities using Gemini to ensure policy compliance by automatically flagging non-compliant expenses.
“Participating in the ABBYY Developer Conference was an incredible opportunity to push the boundaries of what’s possible with AI-driven document processing,” Rithi said. “The energy, innovation and support from the ABBYY community made this an unforgettable experience.”
Moreover, the winners in the second category, ‘Best Use of an ABBYY Product’, were awarded to Team McKinsey, who built a ‘Smart Translator’ solution. The team, led by Sathish Kumar Murugan, developed a solution that addressed document processing challenges, utilising ABBYY Vantage’s data extraction capabilities in conjunction with ChatGPT for instant, context-aware translation, thereby eliminating language barriers in international business operations.

“Building Smart Translator showed us how AI and intelligent OCR can come together to solve real-world challenges with speed and accuracy,” Murugan said.
The team from Telstra was awarded the ‘Best Integration of Third-Party AI’ for their project called Insurance AIdvisor. Behind the wordplay and the project were Krishna Kumar S and Madhu Shankar from the company. The two created a solution to address a challenge in the healthcare industry: understanding complex insurance policies. Their project integrated ABBYY Vantage and OCR with frameworks such as spaCy, OpenAI Embeddings, ChromaDB, LangChain Agents and Gradio to create an agentic AI assistant that simplifies health insurance jargon.

In addition to winning from a pool of $1,500 worth of Amazon gift vouchers, these winners will gain automatic entry into the ABBYY MVP 2026 programme, no application required.
Besides teams from the corporate world showcasing their skills, the hackathon also witnessed emerging talent from various universities competing for the prize. As an honorary mention, the ‘Student Excellence Award’ was won by CMR Institute of Technology for their SILO AI project. The team, comprising Sarvottam Bhagat and Deepankar Sharma, developed a unified document automation toolkit that analyses various document types and suggests optimal ABBYY models for processing.

The tool integrates OpenAI and Google APIs, Gmail, Slack (via MCP server), n8n, Bolt.new, Lovable and Cursor to enable real-time processing, automation and collaboration.
“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,” Bhagat said.
ABBYY’s Commitment to the Global Developer Community
The hackathon not only demonstrated AI’s potential to address pressing challenges but also highlighted how ABBYY’s technologies and products can develop practical solutions with measurable real-world outcomes.
“What stood out most was how our partners combined ABBYY technology with other platforms to solve real business problems. That spirit of innovation and collaboration is what makes this event special,” Murphy said.
“Since our first devcon three years ago, the level of sophistication and imagination using purpose-built AI for business-critical processes has surpassed all expectations. We’re seeing challenges with document automation and process workflows eliminated, accuracy and time-to-value increase, and leadership teams more confident knowing they’re using ABBYY AI,” Orcutt said.
“Whether you want to network, code or co-create, the ABBYY developer conference is where the future of AI and automation are shaped,” he added.
Moreover, the two-day annual conference provided attendees with practical insights through hands-on sessions and case studies led by ABBYY MVPs and experts. Participants learned how to design, scale, and deploy Document AI solutions for maximum impact. The event also offered opportunities to build new relationships and expand technical knowledge to support their progress in intelligent automation.
ABBYY, the US-based company with a presence in 13 countries, has not only built innovative products that aid document processing, trusted by more than 10,000 companies worldwide, but it has also taken several steps, such as the abovementioned hackathon, to nurture the talented developer community globally.
For instance, it offers comprehensive training programs through ABBYY University, which include instructor-led classes, self-paced e-learning, and certification exams for its products, such as Vantage, FlexiCapture, Timeline and more.
These programs enable customers, partners and MVPs to develop intelligent automation solutions, accelerate digital transformation and foster a global ecosystem of knowledge sharing, expertise and innovation.
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