Summer is here. The days grow longer. Time slows down. While most people are taking time off, there are opportunities on the horizon to build on uncharted territory. To build on alien tech.
On August 11, the AO Agents of the Permaweb Hackathon begins. The prize pool is big: $39,000. But more than that, it’s a chance to create something that leaves a mark.
You’ll be building autonomous agents. What could those be?
- Utility agents – automate finance, scrape data, moderate content
- Multi-agent systems – agents that talk and collaborate
- AI-enhanced applications – personalization, recommendations, NLP
- Agent infrastructure – tooling, testing, monitoring
Ready to build? Apply here. Not sure yet? Read on.
How will you remember your summer?
Whether it’s summer or winter where you are, this is a season to build. Since it’s summer where I am, I’m writing from that perspective. Apologies if that doesn’t pertain to you, but the suns out, it’s warm, so I’m gonna yap for a minute.
When you’re a kid, summer has meaning and not just a passing season. You remember those specific summers you did something special or made unforgettable memories. The summer you went on that road trip, the summer your team won the championship, the summer you saw that concert, the summer you fell in love. As we get older, summers blur into each other. We work the same hours. Maybe take a short vacation if we’re lucky.
But it doesn’t have to be like that.
We may have more obligations now, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do something bold. Try something new. Pick up a hobby, travel to a new place, or build agents on alien tech. I’d say the last one sounds like the best summer project. But maybe I’m biased.
Builders from past AO hackathons have turned small ideas into full-time projects. Some have been hired by ecosystem teams. The permaweb ecosystem teams don’t just run hackathons to check off the marketing boxes.
Instead of spending your nights watching Netflix or gaming, you could be building alongside some of the smartest people in Web3, with the chance to win prize money and keep going after the event ends.
This doesn’t have to be just Summer 2025, filed away with all the rest. Give your summer a name. Is it the one where you build a killer AI agent? Start your own project? Or just another summer of doomscrolling and arguing online with anons?
If you’re chronically online like the rest of us, you might as well build something cool while you’re here.
Prep for the hack
Hackathons are a way to experiment with new tech and meet a new community. The Agents of the Permaweb hackathon is a three-week sprint to build AI agents that can navigate and make decisions across the permaweb.
How to prepare:
1. Get to know the stack
Before you can build, you have to understand what you’re working with. AO is not just another L2. It’s a new computing paradigm. Start by reading the AO docs, watching community videos, and asking questions.
Docs to check out:
Channels to check out:
2. Meet the community
Don’t be a lurker. Join the AO Discord. Follow builders, ask questions, build in public. This ecosystem is welcoming to all and rewards those who come with curiosity and a willingness to experiment.
Arweave India shared a great list of ecosystem members to follow on X.
3. Block out time
The hackathon runs from August 11 to September 2. For those working full-time, that’s only three weekends. Prepare now so you can use your time wisely. Stay tuned for updates from the AO team on workshops and hacker meetups to help you plan ahead.
Build like a romantic
The AO team has been heads down getting the tech right. AO testnet saw more usage than expected, and the team didn’t want to let the network mature on foundations that wouldn’t last. To understand the journey, watch Sam’s Arweave Berlin keynote on the evolution of Arweave and AO.
This groundwork had to be laid before onboarding app developers and users. Now that the infrastructure is here, it’s time to build on top of it.
In a previous piece, I wrote about why we need more romantics building on the permaweb. The permaweb has many gigabrained developers building cutting-edge infrastructure, but it still needs a killer app.
That will take someone who thinks differently. Someone with a wild idea. Maybe this is the summer of wild ideas.
This summer we build.
Apply for Agents of the Permaweb now.