GKE Turns 10 Hackathon: Announcing the winners and highlights

The GKE Turns 10 Hackathon was an electrifying showcase of developer ingenuity! Building on the excitement from our initial announcement, the hackathon challenged participants to build powerful AI agents that interact with microservice applications using the robustness of Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) and the intelligence of Google AI models like Gemini. 

The goal was to seamlessly integrate next-generation agentic AI capabilities, all orchestrated on GKE, to elevate existing applications to new heights. The hackathon attracted an incredible 4,773 registered participants from 133 countries, culminating in 133 innovative gallery projects. 

Now, let's give a massive round of applause to our remarkable winners whose projects are a testament to the creativity, technical mastery, and deep understanding of GKE and AI at the heart of this challenge.

Grand prize winner: Amie Wei

The grand prize winner, Amie Wei, was invited to attend KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2025, where she shared her experience and insights. Amie presented a lightning talk, joined an exclusive interview with Stephanie Wong at the House of Kube, and was featured in a broadcast on theCUBE, where she discussed the hackathon trends and her winning application. Read about Amie's interview and the hackathon highlights here. 

She highlighted how Google credits and available resources made it easier to get hands-on experience with GKE and AI. 

“You miss 100% of the shots you do not take”, said Amie when asked what she wanted to tell any other first time hackathon participant or developer.

Check Amie’s submission: The cart-to-kitchen AI assistant on GKE. This AI shopping assistant analyzes a user's grocery cart and recommends recipes. It uses Google products including Gemini, GKE Autopilot, Agent Development Kit (ADK), and Agent-to-Agent (A2A) protocols to enable AI model communication. The assistant helps users decide what to make for dinner based on what they already have.

Regional Winners

Amie’s project set a high bar, but the creativity continued across the globe. We are excited to celebrate our regional winners who demonstrated remarkable technical skill and exemplified the potential of integrating agentic AI with GKE.

North America regional winner

The North America regional winner, Anh Lam, was also invited to attend KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2025, where she presented a lightning talk highlighting her technical execution on GKE. She also had an exclusive interview with Stephanie Wong at the House of Kube.

Check out Anh’s submission: CardOS: AI-Powered Credit Pre-Approval System CardOS uses a multi-agent AI pipeline to revolutionize credit pre-approval. It analyzes spending patterns from Bank of Anthos data, tailors terms and perks, and balances bank profitability with customer value.

Latin America regional winner
NeroFashion by Hudson Araújo, Gabriel Valentim, Samuel Cavalcanti, and Giovanna Moeller.

NeroFashion created a plug-and-play AI microservice for the Online Boutique application running on GKE. The project enhances the online shopping experience by adding a layer of intelligence with features like image mixing to allow users to see themselves wearing the product, and smart descriptions for accessibility.

Asia Pacific regional winner
V-Commerce Studio by Rakesh E, Poujhit MU, Manjunathan R, Mary Shermila.

V-Commerce Studio redefines e-commerce with AI personalized chat, proactive engagement, virtual try-ons, and instant ad generation, all built on Google's ecosystem for intelligent retail automation. It enhances customer experience and automates business workflows, using Gemini models and GKE orchestration.

Europe, Middle East, Africa regional winner
Cartmate by Victor Bash.

Cartmate transforms online shopping into an intelligent, conversational experience. The AI assistant understands style, learns preferences, and provides a truly personalized shopping experience through six specialized AI agents, all orchestrated using a multi-agent architecture deployed on GKE.

Honorable mention #1
Voice Teller - Dial ADK + MCP by Julian Hecker.

Voice Teller is an AI phone agent that handles core banking actions (log in by voice, check balance, create transaction) by replacing clunky IVR systems with an intelligent, real-time voice interface. It runs all components on a GKE Autopilot cluster and uses Agent Development Kit (ADK) for conversational logic and tool orchestration.

Honorable mention #2
CO2‑Aware Shopping Assistant by Prabhakaran Jayaraman Masani.

This project is an intelligent shopping companion that helps users make environmentally conscious purchasing decisions. It features AI-powered product discovery with real-time environmental impact scoring, sustainable shipping optimization, and uses six specialized AI agents that collaborate using the ADK, MCP, and A2A protocols on GKE Autopilot.

Honorable mention #3
Vigil AI by Ayan Liger.

Vigil AI is a proactive, hierarchical multi-agent system designed to enhance the security of the Bank of Anthos application against sophisticated fraud. It uses four specialized agents (TransactionMonitor, Orchestrator, Investigation Agent, Actuator) orchestrated on GKE to flag suspicious activity, investigate using a Gemini model, and lock the user's account if necessary, without modifying the existing application code. 

Inspired by the GKE Hackathon?

If seeing these incredible projects has sparked your interest in agentic AI, take the next step in your developer journey. Whether you missed the hackathon or simply want to sharpen your expertise for enterprise environments, we have a new program designed to help you turn these concepts into reality.

GEAR: Gemini Enterprise Agent Ready (GEAR) is a new educational sprint designed to help developers and decision-makers learn, build and deploy AI agents. This initiative launches in early 2026. Join the waitlist to be among the first to participate.