Makeathon 2026: Build with AI and break through

At Pinterest, innovation happens through experimentation, collaboration and interactive exploration with AI. This August, we hosted our 14th annual Makeathon – our company-wide moment to explore ideas, solve challenges and help shape what’s next for the business, Pinterest users and the way we work. 

One event, two tracks

Makeathon creates space for all Pinterest employees to drive real impact, whether they tackle a project on their own or with a team. Historically, Makeathon has focused on the hackathon event, but this year, we introduced something new: buildathon. While hackathon allowed employees to team up to create bold, cross-functional ideas, buildathon carved out time to build something that improves each individual’s own work and impact. For two full days, meetings were shifted, focus time was activated and employees were innovating.

The Maker’s Lab 

During Makeathon, employees were supported through the Maker’s Lab, a hub for hands-on learning, live guidance and self-serve resources to work through roadblocks and empower confidence when problems arose. This year, we hosted two workshops to help shape and test ideas: how to design your first AI agent and redesigning your work in the age of AI. 

A note from Matt Madrigal, Chief Product & Technology Officer

“Makeathon is an opportunity to push the boundaries of what’s possible. We’re proud of our team for immersing themselves in this year’s event, using AI to reimagine products and processes and creating transformative ideas to drive our business forward. Together, we’re celebrating the 200+ projects submitted and the collaborative spirit that is deeply rooted in our culture.” 

A peek into the winning projects

While we can’t share everything we built during Makeathon, we’re excited to give you an exclusive glimpse at a few of the winning projects.

• Driving the Business Winner: An interactive, self-guided learning tool to better understand the Pinterest user experience 
• Inspiration to Action Winner: Local Pins that allow Pinterest users to search, save and shop ideas close to home
• The Internal Upgrade Winner: A multi-agent orchestration layer that unifies AI tools and data, transforming insights into decks in minutes
• Buildathon Winners: 
• Deck Studio – An AI presentation builder that transforms notes, PDFs, documents and prompts into engaging decks in minutes 
• Real Estate Lease Copilot – An AI agent that helps our team review contracts and leases more consistently, efficiently and effectively across markets
• Client Budget Management and Scaling Agent – An AI agent that reduces the manual time it takes for account managers to manage and scale budgets for clients

That’s a wrap on Makeathon 2026! Interested in being a part of next year’s internal Makeathon event? Explore new career opportunities and apply now.