The Evolving Landscape of Qualitative Research: Exploring the Potential and Navigating the Challenges of Artificial Intelligence

The emergence of generative artificial intelligence (AI) presents a transformative moment for qualitative research, offering profound opportunities for enhancing the scale and efficiency of analysis while raising critical questions about methodological integrity, ethics, and the role of the researcher. This editorial introduces a special collection of papers that collectively map this nascent and dynamic landscape. Moving beyond speculation, the collection provides tangible methods, critical reflections, and robust frameworks for integrating AI into qualitative inquiry. The papers explore four key areas: the development of practical, AI-augmented methodological roadmaps for tasks like thematic analysis; the nuanced experience of the human-AI collaboration in both data analysis and collection; the urgent need for ethical and epistemological guardrails to guide responsible use; and novel applications of AI in the service of meta-research. A clear consensus emerges from this collection: the future of qualitative research with AI is not one of replacement, but of thoughtful and critical augmentation. The qualitative researcher—with their capacity for deep interpretation, ethical judgment, and reflexive engagement—remains indispensable. This special issue provides a foundational dialogue for a community navigating this new frontier, aiming to harness the computational power of AI without sacrificing the humanistic depth that defines the discipline.