Ground Truth: The Live Agents Hackathon - powered by You.com | 500 USD Cash prize

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Every AI model you've ever used is stuck in the past. Ground Truth is a one-day hackathon where you fix that. Join localhost:nyc, The Builder Series and You.com for 10 hours of building AI agents grounded in the live web. Real-time data, deep research, verifiable answers. Come build the kind of agent people would trust with a real decision.

Problem Statement: Every LLM is frozen at its training cutoff. It doesn't know what happened this morning, and when it doesn't know, it guesses, confidently. That's the gap between a cool demo and a product people rely on. Your challenge: build an AI agent that knows what's true right now. It searches the live web through the You.com API, reads the sources, reasons over them and shows its receipts.

The Challenge Tracks. Live Wire (real-time agents): agents that wake up when the world changes. Price moves, breaking news, a competitor launch, a policy change, a new job posting. If it happened in the last hour, your agent already knows and already acted. The Analyst (deep research): pick a profession (VCs, lawyers, journalists, recruiters, doctors, policy staffers) and replace its 40-hour research memo with a 4-minute one, every claim cited. Receipts (trust and verification): agents that fact-check claims, catch AI hallucinations, verify sources and show their work. Best Content (open to every team): post about what you built, tag You.com, and win a dedicated prize.

What to Expect: A kickoff walkthrough of the You.com API: Search, Contents, Research and the hosted MCP server. Free You.com API credits for every builder. 6 hours of building. Teams of up to 4, or solo if that's your thing. Team matching at kickoff if you're coming alone. Mentors from You.com on the floor all day. Live demos to judges at the end, plus food all day.

Prizes: 1st Place Overall: $500 cash. Best Content: TBD. Judges: TBD.

Who Should Attend: Engineers (full stack, backend, AI/ML). Founders and aspiring founders building with AI. Designers and product people who want to ship something real. Researchers and analysts who know exactly what a great research agent should do. You don't need a finished idea. Just show up ready to build.

Sponsors. You.com: AI search infrastructure that gives agents real-time, cited access to the web through its Search, Contents and Research APIs. Hosts: localhost:nyc — Making NYC the biggest startup ecosystem in the world. The Builder Series: A 60,000+ member community redefining what networking looks like — curating founders, operators, investors & more into intentional rooms built for experiences people remember and relationships that last. It's a direct line to the most ambitious builders, with a community that actually shows up. Connect with Me: Join 60,000+ people shaping the future — join the Newsletter, follow the Builder Series, find me here.

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