Spectrum’s Employee Hackathon Drives AI Innovation

Artificial intelligence (AI) helps Spectrum better serve customers and employees, deliver improved products and services and operate more efficiently. Spectrum recently held a nationwide AI Hackathon, bringing together hundreds of developers from across the Company for two days of virtual and in-person prototyping and problem-solving. The event gave employees the chance to use emerging AI technologies to develop new tools that improve customer interactions and internal processes.

“As technology evolves, the way we work and the tools we use are going to change – and the only way to embrace that change is to get hands-on, experiment and learn together,” said Jake Perlman, EVP and Chief Technology & Information Officer. “The Hackathon gets people out of their day-to-day and sparks creativity, new ideas and new ways of working.”

Standout Teams and Winning Solutions

Winning teams were recognized for developing tools that could help prevent outages and improve network reliability, building a solution to simplify microservices and debugging, and creating tools that allow for natural language queries and support enhanced customer self-service. A panel of company leaders judged the projects on business value, technical execution, innovation and effective use of AI.

“There were a lot of amazing products being created in a matter of two days – ideas that normally take weeks or months to build were tested and demonstrated in hours,” said Kartik Munjal, Product & Technology Data Scientist and member of the first-place team. “For our project, the feature we were looking to implement would take about six to eight weeks without using AI. We were able to do it in less than three days – and that’s a fully-integrated and tested final product.”

AI Innovation With Real Impact

Throughout the event, there was a buzz in the room as participants built and tested ideas, asked questions, took risks and learned from one another. But the Hackathon wasn’t just about finding creative solutions to real-world problems – it was about reinforcing a culture where employees experiment, explore and innovate together. By encouraging employees to think boldly, Spectrum is building a culture that combines innovation and creativity, and the results become improvements customers experience every day.