Thesis Work - AI-integration in Volvo Cars test flow

About this opportunity - Background

During the development of products at Volvo Cars, a large number of test activities are performed in vehicles before the cars are delivered to customers. Before a car reaches mass production, the cost and complexity of building and maintaining test vehicles are significant, and the available test vehicles are continuously optimized for efficient use.

Internal stakeholders communicate their needs for access to test vehicles to an organization called Product Test and Validation. This organization is responsible for creating and delivering the most relevant test vehicles internally. In large programs, the total needs from internal stakeholders are complex due to the large amount of data and to variations in test object specifications and status over time.

In collaboration with an external partner, AI is currently being introduced into parts of this workflow. The purpose of introducing AI is to support the optimization of selecting the most relevant test objects and their utilization during product development at Volvo Cars.

Scope of the thesis work

During the collaboration project introducing AI — starting in Q4 2025 and continuing until the end of Q2 2026 — the time and effort required to reach a satisfactory level of knowledge within tailored AI solutions will be evaluated.

We aim to evaluate methods and define best practices for introducing AI with a tailor-made, specific purpose in our development process. The outcome from this work will serve as a reference to support the evaluation of other internal AI initiatives.

The evaluation will include proposals to estimate what is needed to reach a satisfactory level of AI knowledge in specific, tailor-made future applications:

• The feasibility and business value
• The complexity (in terms of time and effort)
• The methods and best practices to be used

You will be involved during the implementation phase and be part of the team responsible for evaluating and validating the developed AI agents, ensuring they meet the defined use-case requirements.

What you'll bring

• General knowledge of generative AI
• Understanding of how to utilize generative AI and apply methods/tools to develop domain-specific knowledge
• Ability to work on site at Volvo Cars in Torslanda (Gothenburg) for at least part of the program

Duration

• The work will start in January 2026
• The duration for this thesis work is 20 weeks.
• 30 ECTS (academic credits) if in agreement with your Thesis Advisor at the University
• This thesis is to be conducted by 2 students working in pair.