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The early-stage product design and development (PDD) process fundamentally involves the processing, synthesis, and communication of a large amount of information to make a series of key decisions on design exploration and specification, concept generation and evaluation, and prototyping. Although most current PDD practices depend heavily on human intuition, advances in computing, communication, and human–computer interaction technologies can transform PDD processes by combining the creativity and ingenuity of human designers with the speed and precision of computers. Emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, and extended reality (XR) stand to substantially change the way designers process information and make decisions in the early stages of PDD by enabling new methods such as natural language processing, generative modeling, cloud-based virtual collaboration, and immersive design and prototyping. These new technologies are unlikely to render the human designer obsolete, but rather do change the role that the human designer plays. Thus, it is essential to understand the designer's role as an individual, a team, and a group that forms an organization. The purpose of this special issue is to synthesize the state-of-the-art research on technologies and methods that augment the performance of designers in the front-end of PDD—from understanding user needs to conceptual design, prototyping, and development of systems architecture while also emphasizing the critical need to understand the designer and their role as well.