Agentic AI in action: Lessons from the Capgemini and Google Cloud hackathon

Agentic AI in action: Lessons from the Capgemini and Google Cloud hackathon

Geoffroy Pajot

12 Sep 2025

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Google Cloud and Capgemini brought together more than 1,800 innovators from around the globe for the Google Cloud Agentic AI Hackathon

With 93 percent of business leaders believing that scaling AI agents in the next 12 months will provide a competitive edge, according to the Capgemini Research Institute, it was paramount for Capgemini and Google Cloud to come together to help customers harness the promise of multi-agents systems and provide a pragmatic way to deploy them at scale

In this context, by conducting our proven Google Cloud Hackathon for three years in a row, our motivation was higher than ever to develop a suite of repeatable agents capable of solving real-world business challenges.

The event used Google Cloud's latest agentic AI tools available in Vertex AI to deploy multi-agent systems with AgentSpace, Agent Development Kit (ADK), and Agent Engine to build solutions for 23 real-life use cases submitted by Capgemini clients, following the newly released Agent-to-Agent (A2A) standard.

Over three weeks, hackers explored how intelligent agents can reason, act autonomously, and adapt to complex environments and how they can be applied to real-world business challenges.

This was a proving ground for how companies can move from experimentation to execution with agentic AI, while fostering a culture of learning and human-AI collaboration.

A strategic collaboration for innovation

The hackathon represented our partnership in action. It leveraged Google Cloud's advanced AI technologies and Capgemini's deep industry expertise to co-create solutions that are not only technically robust but also business ready.

Our original goal was to develop more than 200 agents on Google's latest agentic AI platforms. The response exceeded expectations: 256 teams from 39 countries, created more than 320 unique agents during the event. Forty-nine mentors and judges were mobilized to select standout, customer-ready innovations.

Breakthrough solutions with real-world potential

The use cases included advanced solutions from a wide range of industries and were judged on innovation, feasibility, and alignment with business needs.

Here are the nine standout projects from the final round.

• Aerospace: An agentic AI-powered multi-agent system orchestrates the end-to-end requirement validation process by extracting key data from PDFs and IBM DOORS. It then refines and curates requirement statements, analyzing gaps and inconsistencies, and generates comprehensive, actionable validation reports.
• Consumer products and retail: AI agents optimize procurement, reduce waste, and manage inventory to meet sustainability goals.
• Automotive and manufacturing: An AI system that automates supply chain and manufacturing to cut delays and costs with proactive decision-making.
• Consumer products and retail: A retail analytics system examines sales data, advising on new promotion strategies and putting together new marketing material.
• Banking and insurance: A contact center tool that fetches customers data, suggests live actions, and recommends next steps.
• Public service: An assistant that simplifies public service access with easy sign-up and step-by-step help.
• Telecommunications: The AI system detects service issues, recommends fixes, and sends alerts for faster support.
• Banking and insurance: An IT assistant that automates ServiceNow tasks like password resets and triaging to reduce help desk load.
• Public service: This health tool personalizes check-ins and surveys to monitor patient well-being and trigger alerts.

Several projects are now advancing to MVP piloting and client co-innovation tracks. The list of agents will also be made available to Capgemini clients through our Group AI Agents gallery as part of our RAISE (Reliable AI Solution Engineering) agent accelerator.

Learning through doing

More than 96 percent of participants completed the Google Agentic AI learning path. The hackathon became a live learning lab, combining structured enablement with hands-on experimentation.

Bootcamps, workshops, and mentorship from Capgemini and Google Cloud SMEs ensured that every team had the support they needed, setting Capgemini as one of the largest Google Agentic enabled partners ready to meet the pressing market demand.

Unlocking AI at scale

AI can reimagine business but organizations need to scale to really unlock the full potential and uncover real business benefits. Hackathons are one pathway to AI readiness, by providing training and the opportunity to experiment with the technology as well as build working agents. Implementing agentic AI requires a high level of AI readiness, while creating the right human-AI chemistry to ensure lasting adoption.

The Resonance AI Framework by Capgemini helps leaders envision AI's potential, embed it into the foundation of their operations, and enable human-AI chemistry. It is designed to allow effective interaction between people and intelligent systems, and creates the trust, understanding, and collaboration needed for human and AI agents to build reliability over time, ensuring hybrid teams thrive. This democratization of AI empowers businesses to embed AI into the fabric of everyday operations.

A culture of collaboration and intrapreneurship

The hackathon fostered experimentation and cross-functional collaboration. Teams were assembled from different business lines, geographies, and technical backgrounds. This diversity of thought was a key driver of success.

The hackathon was structured in four phases:

1. Onboarding, use case definition, and account selection
2. Client onboarding and business and technical scoping
3. Training and hackathon program execution
4. In-production workshops.

This framework enabled creativity to flourish within clear guardrails and ensured that promising ideas could transition into actionable prototypes.

Watch the highlights

See the energy, creativity, and impact firsthand

This video features highlights from the live sessions, interviews with participants, and demos of the winning solutions.

Customizing hackathons: What this means for the enterprise

A hackathon is not only a fantastic innovation hub, it's also an opportunity to engage our employees from around the world. It provides insights into real-life use cases as well as upskilling knowledge and building culture, and shows how to stay ahead of the competition with new ideas.

With our breadth of experience, Capgemini can work with clients looking to explore their own internal hackathon, helping define and prioritize agentic use cases specific to their needs, and upskill employees with challenge-based learning to accelerate skill development and adoption of emerging technologies, empowering teams to experiment and collaborate fosters long-term transformation.

We can also help explore the possibilities and partner with Google Cloud for strategic collaboration to accelerate business outcomes.

Looking ahead

This competition brought together developers, designers, business analysts, and others to deliver multiple points of value:

• Upskilled Capgemini talent with hands-on learning and certifications on the latest Google Cloud technologies
• Expanded our AI agent gallery available to clients
• Supported AI at scale as part of our Resonance Framework.

Our goal is now to empower clients to accelerate transformation through intelligent, autonomous systems grounded in human-AI collaboration. A hackathon is just one of the many tools we have available to enable AI-powered enterprises.

To explore how agentic AI and Google Cloud's generative capabilities can accelerate innovation in your organization, reach out to our Google Cloud experts. Whether you're looking to pilot a solution, scale a use case, organize a hackathon, or build a roadmap for transformation, we're here to help you take the next step, wherever you are in the journey.

Vice-President and Chief Technology and Capability leader for the global Google partnership

Geoffroy brings over 20 years of distinguished experience in Business and Technology transformation, with a strategic emphasis on global partnership development to drive sustainable growth. Currently, he leads the cloud and custom app Google Cloud practice and oversees pivotal initiatives, including the Google Cloud Generative AI Center of Excellence. His expertise centers on advancing data & AI business transformation and innovation while enhancing group-wide Google Cloud capabilities. Beyond his professional commitments, Geoffroy is passionate about wellness and athletic pursuit.