AI for Requirements Engineering: Industry adoption and Practitioner perspectives

Paper in proceeding, 2025

The integration of AI for Requirements Engineering (RE) presents significant benefits but also poses real challenges. Although RE is fundamental to software engineering, limited research has examined AI adoption in RE. We surveyed 55 software practitioners to map AI usage across four RE phases: Elicitation, Analysis, Specification, and Validation, and four collaboration modes: human-only decisions, AI validation, Human–AI Collaboration (HAIC), and full AI automation. Participants also shared their perceptions, challenges, and opportunities when applying AI to RE tasks. Our data show that 58.2% of respondents already use AI in RE, and 69.1% view its impact as positive or very positive. HAIC dominates practice, accounting for 54.4% of all RE techniques, while full AI automation remains minimal at 5.4%. Passive AI validation (4.4–6.2%) lags even further behind, indicating that practitioners value AI’s active support over passive oversight. These findings suggest that AI is most effective when positioned as a collaborative partner rather than a replacement for human expertise. It also highlights the need for HAIC frameworks tailored to RE and for robust, responsible AI governance as AI adoption in RE grows.