One hackathon. 36% more AI-ready employees at New Relic. Here's the Playbook.

iForAI was critical to the success of our global AI hackathon. From the initial planning stages through the hour-by-hour event support and final judging, iForAI helped guide the design and development of our enablement offerings, pre-event technical ramp-ups, vibe-coding vendor partnerships, event schedule, judging criteria, mentorship options and final awards.

We saw over 1300 staff engagements from around the globe (US, Europe, Asia) in our pre-event Level Up sessions and over 750 participants register for the full-day hackathon. By offering AI adoption strategies tailored to our specific needs and environment, iForAI helped us bring AI knowledge and skills to both our non-technical AND technical staff from beginners to our most advanced staff.

The results were outstanding! Based on our internal post-event survey, staff familiarity with AI tools/technology jumped 36% across all roles and areas. The CSAT score for the event was 85.7% with 98% of staff indicating that they would consider participating in another hackathon like this one. In addition, Hackathon teams developed 127 ideas into 81 AI-infused projects that have become the seeds for future internal operations and customer-facing product features. We were even able to accomplish this on time and under budget!

It was more than an event – it was an inflection point in our AI journey as a company. I highly recommend iForAI to any organization serious about accelerating internal AI adoption.

Despite strong technical capabilities, teams across New Relic lacked confidence and hands-on experience with AI tools.

AI knowledge was unevenly distributed, primarily concentrated in R&D, while non-technical roles had limited exposure. This slowed adoption, reduced experimentation, and limited New Relic's ability to fully leverage AI at scale.

Leadership needed a way to rapidly build practical AI literacy across roles through real usage.

A mentorship-driven, one-day global AI Hackathon, designed and led by iForAI, supported by structured preparation and follow-up.

The program included:

• Two months of preparation, including 10+ AI training sessions across New Relic teams
• Hands-on mentorship focused on real workflows and business problems
• A one-day global AI Hackathon with 750+ participants, including non-R&D teams
• Post-event mentorship and structured follow-ups to embed learnings into New Relic's daily work

The format emphasized experimentation, collaboration, and immediate applicability.

• 36% increase in AI familiarity across roles and departments at New Relic
• CSAT: 85.7%
• 98% of participants said they would participate again
• Significant boost in confidence using AI tools in day-to-day workflows
• Increased cross-functional engagement with AI beyond New Relic's engineering teams

The initiative created a boost for broader AI adoption across New Relic and laid the foundation for ongoing AI enablement.