Add Value Machine and ADCB Successfully Conclude UAE's First-Ever Generative AI Hackathon

Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank has partnered with Add Value Machine and Amazon Web Services to host the UAE's first generative AI hackathon in the banking sector.

The event brought together technology teams from ADCB and external developers to build generative AI solutions targeting real banking challenges, including streamlining customer service operations, automating document processing, and improving internal knowledge management. Participants used AWS cloud infrastructure and generative AI tools to develop working prototypes over the course of the hackathon.

Add Value Machine (AVM), a UAE-based AI consultancy, co-organised the event and provided technical mentorship to participating teams. The company specialises in deploying AI solutions for financial services clients in the Gulf region.

ADCB said the hackathon is part of its broader strategy to embed AI capabilities across the organisation, moving beyond pilot projects to identify practical applications that can be deployed at scale. The bank has been investing in its technology infrastructure and talent pipeline to support the adoption of generative AI tools in production environments.

The hackathon format has become increasingly popular among Gulf banks as a way to accelerate AI innovation while identifying both internal talent and external partners. By working on real banking use cases under time pressure, the events produce tangible outputs that can be evaluated for further development.

AWS's involvement reflects the cloud provider's growing footprint in the Gulf financial services sector, where it has been partnering with banks to provide the compute infrastructure and AI services needed to support machine learning workloads.