ZONE3000: Sergiy Skurikhin and the Business of Making AI Pay

Most companies now agree that artificial intelligence matters. Far fewer have worked out how to make it pay. ZONE3000, the software engineering company founded and led by Sergiy Skurikhin, has built its current strategy around closing that gap: taking AI out of the pilot stage and into the day-to-day operations of businesses, including many outside the technology sector. It is a nominee in the Artificial Intelligence category of the TPC Awards 2026.

A quarter of a century of engineering

ZONE3000 is not a newcomer riding the AI wave. The company traces its work in the IT industry back more than 25 years, and grew into one of Ukraine's largest technology employers. For much of that time its engineers built and supported the infrastructure behind everyday internet services, from domains and hosting to network security and private email, working with partners including the global domain registrar Namecheap.

Today the company describes itself as having more than 2,400 technology specialists across 17 offices and hubs, serving clients in North America, Europe and the Middle East. Its work spans custom software, business intelligence and big data, machine learning and generative AI.

AI that has to earn its place

Under Skurikhin, ZONE3000 now positions itself as an AI transformation partner, with a stated aim of making AI practical and profitable. The emphasis is on adoption that is smooth, measurable and low-risk, rather than on technology for its own sake. "We cut through the noise and deliver AI that works for your business," is how Skurikhin puts it.

The company reports more than 40 AI projects delivered, in sectors including construction, e-commerce and retail, real estate and property technology, and hospitality. Its argument is that AI can create value almost anywhere, provided it is tied to a real business problem from the start.

Built to keep working

ZONE3000's story is also one of resilience. With its main engineering teams in Kharkiv, Lviv and Dnipro, the company had to keep operating through the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It supported staff with relocation and continued pay, set up a hub in Bulgaria to give employees a safe place to live and work, and stopped selling products and providing support in Russia and Belarus.

Its multi-hub model, which the company says allows development to continue around the clock, grew partly out of that experience. So did its focus on people: ZONE3000 reports an employee retention rate above 95%, women in 53% of management roles, and recognition as one of the best IT employers in Ukraine in the annual rankings of the developer community DOU.

From infrastructure to intelligence

The thread running through ZONE3000's history is engineering at scale: first the infrastructure that keeps websites and services online, now the systems that let businesses put AI to work. Skurikhin's case rests on having steered a large engineering organisation through that shift, and through extraordinary circumstances, while keeping its people and its clients with it.

ZONE3000 and its founder and CEO, Sergiy Skurikhin, are nominees in the Artificial Intelligence category of the TPC Awards 2026. Figures are as provided by the company.