Challenges that prevent broad industry adoption for friction stir welding of high-strength materials are (i) premature tool failure, (ii) selection of tool material and design, and (iii) weldability. To address these typical issues, a finite element-based study for laser-assisted friction stir welding process is carried out in ABAQUS, commercially available FE software. Experimentally, it has been shown that for welding of thick plate, laser assistance ahead of the tool is sought to be beneficial. However, the introduction of laser heating adds another complexity in modeling aspects. It is carried out in twofold. Firstly, the laser preheating is modeled to obtain the thermal map on the sample. Next, the regular FSW process is carried out on the already preheated sample. The important findings achieved are improving weld productivity and satisfactory tool life. © 2019, Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.