An Application of ChatGPT4o to Generate Requirement Definition Documents and Its Evaluation: An Industrial Case Study

In the software development process, “requirements definition” is one of the most critical elements. Clearly and comprehensively defining requirements is essential for the success of the development. On the other hand, manual requirements definition is not only an important but also a costly task, and it is prone to human errors such as omissions and misunderstandings. Therefore, this paper examines “to what extent the use of generative AI technology, specifically ChatGPT4o, can automate and support the requirements definition process.” The study applies ChatGPT4o to an actual system development case, exploring its effectiveness. Two patterns were tested: one where an overview of the system to be developed is provided in a single prompt and another where information is provided interactively in small increments. The outputs obtained from these were compared with manually defined requirements. The results confirmed that the interactive pattern produced more practical results, and the use of ChatGPT4o also resulted in reduced man-hours for creating ER diagrams. On the other hand, some challenges were also reported regarding the way information was provided through prompts.