AI4SE and SE4AI Exploration: A Decade Looking Back and Forward

2026-06-17

AI Summary

This study addresses critical gaps in the integration of systems engineering (SE) and artificial intelligence (AI), including fragmented research, insufficient practical guidance, and key capability deficiencies. By systematically reviewing a decade of advancements in AI and SE, the work proposes a three-stage evolutionary model for AI4SE/SE4AI and introduces a novel human-AI collaborative literature evaluation framework. Combining six categories of AI models with expert review, the framework analyzes 2,601 publications to identify five major research gaps. The study further develops a practical roadmap encompassing adoption strategies, assurance mechanisms, and workforce transformation. To foster transparent collaboration and future inquiry, it also releases an interactive AI4SE/SE4AI Explorer platform and a consensus-based dataset.

Abstract

The March 2020 INCOSE INSIGHT special issue on AI and Systems Engineering (SE) became the most downloaded issue in the publication's history and launched a research community that now draws over 250 registrants to its annual workshop. In this article, we trace the progress in AI and SE across three phases (labeled here foundational, applied, and LLM inflection) based on the authors' reading of the field's core papers, and describe our opinions of where the community has converged and where critical gaps remain. Separately, a human-AI agreement literature review leveraging both human expertise and six AI models was performed to assess the relevance of 1,712 INCOSE INSIGHT articles and 889 SERC publications. The results identify five critical research gaps and offer guidance for practitioners navigating AI adoption, assurance, and workforce transformation in SE. We share the agreement data and the AI4SE/SE4AI Explorer web application so readers can compare their own relevance judgments with the human and AI raters.

Problem

• AI4SE
• SE4AI
• research gaps
• systems engineering
• artificial intelligence

Innovation

• human-AI agreement
• AI4SE
• SE4AI
• literature review
• interactive web application