AI

Seriously? Footwear brand Allbirds says it has just transformed into an AI business

In a surprising and perhaps ridiculous turn of events, the struggling sneaker company that once tried to make shoes eco-sustainable announced today that it has metamorphosed into artificial intelligence firm.

The San Francisco-based company, once valued at $4 billion, said it would “pivot its business” to “AI compute infrastructure,” completely abandoning footwear and now with a “long-term vision to become a fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service and AI-native cloud solutions provider.” The company will from here on in be known as NewBird AI.

The move will still need to be approved by the board, with a vote scheduled for May 18. If it receives approval, the company has said it will raise $50 million, although didn’t specify who would be making the investment. That money will go to the “acquisition and monetization of graphics processing units, related high-performance computing infrastructure capable to support high workloads and other related assets.”

The move has left observers in the industry bewildered. “The rise of and adoption has created unprecedented structural demand for specialized, high-performance compute that the market is struggling to meet,” the company explained in a press release. “NewBird AI is being built to help close that gap.”

Shifting consumer patterns have not been kind to the company formerly known as Allbirds. A few weeks ago, it sold its footwear assets to the fashion firm, American Exchange Group, for just $39 million. This was quite the fall for a company once the talk of town in Hollywood, Silicon Valley and global politics.

The high-flying bird took a nosedive from there and from a valuation of billions, became what some commentators were calling a “dead parrot.” The recent transformation has pushed the stock price up considerably, but with a current market value close to $150 million, the company is still very much walking in the shadows of past glory.

Whether attaching the words “artificial intelligence” to your company name means anyone can make it these days remains to be seen.

“Some of those shifts are real and strategic,” AI infrastructure expert Bill Kleyman told the Associated Press. “Others feel more reactive. In this case, I think it’s fair to say it can come across as a bit desperate. The underlying business struggled, and AI presents a compelling narrative reset.”

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