The use of generative AI in software development must expand beyond individual developers to encompass teams, organisations and enterprises. This is essential for maintaining the global competitiveness of the Finnish software industry in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.
The MAISA joint action (Managed AI-powered Software Innovations), coordinated by DIMECC, brings together 11 leading organisations from research, industry and the software sector.
“With help of MAISA, Bittium aims to integrate AI tools into our product development process, in order to enhance productivity and quality, as well as increase developer satisfaction,” says Jari Partanen, Head of Quality and Research at Bittium.
The joint action targets a 30–40 percent improvement in productivity and significantly faster time-to-market for products and services.
“MAISA brings the benefits of AI into the everyday work of software teams and organizations – previously, these benefits were mostly limited to developers’ desktops. At the same time, MAISA is building a test platform where the latest language models and technologies can be tried out easily and cost-effectively without major investments,” says Pekka Abrahamsson, Professor of Software Engineering at Tampere University.
Safe and responsible solutions
MAISA is developing responsible and effective models for utilising AI across all levels of software development – from individual lines of code to business decision-making.
“The goal is to create AI solutions that are explainable, secure and ethically sound, and that can also be used in highly regulated sectors such as healthcare, defence and automotive,” says Ville Lämsä, Project Manager at DIMECC Oy.
MAISA explores how collaboration between humans and AI can be enhanced at the team level. It also develops methods to integrate generative AI throughout the entire software development lifecycle – from requirements management to maintenance. A key focus is the responsible and secure fine-tuning of large language models (LLMs). The joint action’s results will be widely disseminated and adopted across both industry and academia, reinforcing Finland’s position as a global leader in AI-assisted software engineering.
MAISA participants are Bittium, Tietoevry, Netum, Demola Global, Q4US, Eficode, Koivu Solutions Oy, Liana Technologies, University of Oulu, GPT-Lab (Tampere University), and LUT University. The two-year Co-Innovation joint action has a total budget of €4.3 million, and it is funded by the participators and Business Finland. MAISA is the flagship project of the SW4E ecosystem, which focuses on advancing the software industry.