Master Thesis Opportunity – Spring 2027

1-2 students completing a Master Thesis 30hp.

Lund

Job title of Thesis Project

AI for product discovery: tool supporting User Research and early product development.

Background

Sony develops products and services for global markets, where understanding user needs is an important part of the preliminary stages of product design. The UX Design and Research team in Lund supports a wide range of product teams through product discovery, market research and studies of emerging and beta-stage solutions.

These activities include interviews, observations, usability findings and other qualitative material. Generative AI could help UX professionals’ analyses and reuse this knowledge more efficiently, but its output must be accurate, traceable and appropriate for use with confidential research data.

Fast-paced product-development environments require timely answers to complex questions about users and markets. UX researchers currently spend significant time analyzing interviews, surveys and usability studies to produce insights for product teams. AI could accelerate parts of this work, but unresolved questions remain concerning accuracy, traceability, confidentiality and regulatory compliance. The central challenge is to determine where AI adds genuine value, how its output should be validated and what level of human oversight is required for trustworthy use.

Thesis Objectives

The goal of the thesis is to identify and evaluate a high-value opportunity for AI support within user research or product discovery, and to develop a proof-of-concept demonstrating how that opportunity could be addressed responsibly.

The selected use case and technical approach will be defined jointly with the students at the beginning of the project.

The work may include literature review, analysis of current UX workflows, development of an AI-enabled prototype, and evaluation using historical research material.

Possible focus areas include

• AI-assisted participant recruitment and participant database management
• AI-assisted reporting and knowledge transfer
• Generation and validation of synthetic personas
• AI-assisted research data repository
• Decision-support tools for initial product creation

Key questions

• Which (or How can) UX research activities benefit from AI support?
• What opportunities and limitations affect the effective use of AI when handling critical research information, considering organizational needs and European regulations?
• How could we build a proof-of-concept using data from previous projects? The system or prototype built can e.g. be a tool for analyzing data with AI support or synthetic personas.
• How can techniques such as LLMs, RAG, or AI agents be applied to UX research workflows?

• What degree of human review is needed to secure trustworthy and robust AI-generated insights?
• How can AI-supported workflows improve efficiency without compromising research quality?

The project is expected to result in recommendations or a framework for AI-assisted UX research, and/or a proof-of-concept prototype demonstrating an AI-supported workflow.

Education

We encourage master's students to apply who are curious about AI-enabled systems and product development. This includes students from LTH program in Computer Science and Engineering (D), Information and Communication Engineering (C), Industrial Management and Engineering (I), Engineering Mathematics (F), or related fields.

Please submit your application no later than 16th November, 2026.