Against the backdrop of the digital economy, technologies such as big data, generative artificial intelligence, and digital twins are deeply involved in the whole chain of product research and development, promoting the transformation of traditional product design from experience‑driven to data‑driven. Aiming at the problems existing in traditional processes, including subjectivity in demand research, fragmented links with long iteration cycles, high costs of physical prototypes, and lagging user feedback, this paper adopts a combined method of literature analysis and case study. It sorts out the existing pain points of traditional processes, analyzes the empowerment logic of digital technologies in each design link, and constructs a full‑process framework for digitally‑transformed product design. Optimization paths are proposed from five dimensions: demand mining, concept generation, simulation verification, collaborative iteration, and implementation transformation, and implementation strategies are summarized and combined with industrial practices. The study shows that digital empowerment can effectively shorten R&D cycles, reduce trial‑and‑error costs and improve the market adaptability of products. Nevertheless, data governance, human‑machine collaboration mechanisms and talent team building should be simultaneously improved to fully release the efficiency of digital design.