Requirements Analysis for AI solutions : a study on how requirements analysis is executed when developing AI solutions

Requirements analysis is an essential part of the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) in order to achieve success in a software development project. There are several methods, techniques and frameworks used when expressing, prioritizing and managing requirements in IT projects. It is widely established that it is difficult to determine requirements for traditional systems, so a question naturally arises on how the requirements analysis is executed as AI solutions (that even fewer individuals can grasp) are being developed. Little research has been made on how the vital requirements phase is executed during development of AI solutions. This research aims to investigate the requirements analysis phase during the development of AI solutions. To explore this topic, an extensive literature review was made, and in order to collect new information, a number of interviews were performed with five suitable organizations (i.e, organizations that develop AI solutions). The results from the research concludes that the requirements analysis does not differ between development of AI solutions in comparison to development of traditional systems. However, the research showed that there were some deviations that can be deemed to be particularly unique for the development of AI solutions that affects the requirements analysis. These are: (1) the need for an iterative and agile systems development process, with an associated iterative and agile requirements analysis, (2) the importance of having a large set of quality data, (3) the relative deprioritization of user involvement, and (4) the difficulty of establishing timeframe, results/feasibility and the behavior of the AI solution beforehand