On May 28, 2026, during Toronto Tech Week, Agnic hosted the inaugural AI Pioneers Hackathon at the SingleKey offices in downtown Toronto. Over 20 teams registered, seven made it to demo day, and one team didn't just win — they made Canadian history.
The theme: build AI agents that solve real financial problems for real people.
Setting the Stage
The event opened with a keynote from fintech veteran Farshad Nowshadi, who set the tone for the day with a prediction that felt less like speculation and more like a deadline: "From 2026 onward, the majority of all financial transactions will be machine-to-machine." That sentence hung over every demo that followed.
A fireside chat with Babu Nair (Founder, Financial Technology Frontiers) and Pradeep Nadgir (AI Product Leader, Moneris) dug into where incumbent payment infrastructure meets — and sometimes collides with — the new agentic layer. Angelo Casanas from Elevate reminded builders to obsess over the customer pain before the product, and Layial El-Hadi of Fintech Cadence underscored why industry experience is a feature, not a formality.
The Competing Projects
Seven projects took the stage. Each one tackled a distinct slice of the problem — and together they painted a picture of where agentic AI is actually headed.
| Project | What it does |
|---|---|
| SimoneAI | A unified AI life companion that integrates personal data, finances, and decision-making into one context-aware agent. |
| WardO | AI-powered fraud prevention for Web3 transactions — a real-time guardian for on-chain activity. |
| EasyPace / Sage | A senior safety guardian that intercepts scam attempts and enforces spending limits on behalf of elderly users. |
| Viki | A budget-aware, location-smart shopping agent that finds what you need where you are. |
| MercyGov | Simplifies access to digital government services and payments for underserved communities. |
| MonetizeAPI | Infrastructure for creators and developers to monetize digital services without billing code. |
| RoleBridge | A pay-per-use AI interview preparation tool that charges per session, not per month. |
The Winners
Three tracks. Three prizes. Each track reflected a core challenge in the agentic economy.
- The Last Mile — Won by Simone AI. Building AI that reaches people where traditional financial infrastructure stops.
- Monetize Your AI App — Won by Role Bridge. Proving that pay-per-use is a viable model for AI-native products.
- Agents You Can Trust — Won by Ward-O. Earning the right to act autonomously in high-stakes environments.
A Historic First
The day's most significant moment didn't come from the competition. Obiscotti, a local Toronto bakery, became Canada's first agentic commerce merchant — live, on stage — through Agnic's new discovery and payment service.
What that means in practice: an AI agent can now find Obiscotti, verify its identity, place an order, and settle payment — without a human in the loop on either side. The three pillars that make this work are Authorization (who can act), Authenticity (proof of identity), and Accountability (a receipt both sides can verify). For a bakery in Toronto to be the proof-of-concept for that infrastructure feels exactly right.
Agentic commerce is no longer a whitepaper. It's a croissant you can order without opening an app.
Thank You
None of this happens without the judges and mentors who gave their time:
Thank you to SingleKey for hosting, and to our ecosystem partners Fintech Cadence, Elevate, HI2AI / Financial Technology Frontiers, Toronto Starts, and Sarzamin for helping us build a room full of people who care about what comes next.
Build on the same infrastructure the hackathon ran on — get your agent a wallet.
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