SEBI Team Wins Global Agentic Regulator Hackathon

A team from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has been named the overall winner of the inaugural Global Agentic Regulator Hackathon, organised by the Cambridge Digital Innovation and Regulation Initiative (C:>DIR) to explore the use of artificial intelligence in regulation.

The competition focused on agentic AI, where AI systems can independently make decisions and take actions. The hackathon received 336 submissions from more than 65 countries, with 36 teams advancing to the final stage. Six winning teams shared a total prize pool of USD 100,000.

SEBI’s Team Pheonix secured the top position for its solution addressing market manipulation, agentic herding and financial stability. The team developed AI agents and digital twins that can help regulators simulate and assess how proposed policies could affect financial markets before implementation.

The other winners included Yu-Sam Power from University College London, Rwanda Anti-Scam Team, Team Axiom from the State Bank of Pakistan, Agent Reliability Profile from the MLCommons Financial Services Working Group, and Probe from the UK.

The winners were announced by Agustín Carstens, former General Manager of the Bank for International Settlements, at an event in Cambridge on 18 September.

The hackathon covered six areas, including AI-driven fraud and scams, agentic payments, digital verification, smart contracts, AI-enabled financial advice, and market manipulation.

The initiative brought together regulators, financial institutions, technology organisations and other stakeholders to examine how regulatory frameworks can adapt as AI systems become increasingly autonomous and interconnected.