Students Build Ant-Inspired AI Research Tool Trails at JacHacks SF Hackathon

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At the JacHacks SF hackathon, team members Tirth Suba and Aarnav Gutti developed Trails, an AI-powered research system modeled on how ants use pheromone trails to find food. The system deploys five AI agents that explore a graph of 40 evidence nodes, leaving digital "trails" on useful connections that grow stronger with repeated use and fade when ignored. Rather than communicating directly, the agents coordinate through this shared graph environment, allowing them to work in parallel without interfering with one another. At the end of a session, Trails generates a visual evidence map highlighting the strongest research paths, complete with sources and relevance scores. The team used the Jac framework to manage graph operations and API exposure, and noted that the project demonstrated how AI agents can collaborate effectively through a shared environment rather than direct messaging.

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