Allbirds Inc, once known for its sustainable footwear brand, has officially rebranded and appointed Nadia Carlsten as chief executive, accelerating its shift into artificial intelligence infrastructure just months after selling its shoe business for $39 million and rebranding to NewBird AI, with shares of BIRD surging 34% following the announcement as the company positions itself among a growing group of firms pivoting into AI compute and hardware despite having no prior presence in the sector.
Not even shoemakers want to miss out on the current AI revolution. Allbirds has now rebranded to Smartbird and named Nadia Carlsten as its new chief executive, deepening a rapid strategic pivot that has taken the company from footwear manufacturing into artificial intelligence infrastructure in less than three months.
The move marks another turn in a transformation that began in April, when the company shifted away from its core shoe business, rebranded as NewBird AI and announced plans to focus on AI compute infrastructure. That transition followed the sale of its footwear assets for $39 million to American Exchange Group.
The company said Carlsten, who previously served as chief executive of the Danish Center for AI Innovation, will also join its board. The center is an AI infrastructure firm partnered with Nvidia and operates a supercomputer known as Gefion.
Shares of BIRD surged 34% on Wednesday following the announcement.
In April, the company changed its name to NewBird AI and shifted from making shoes to Ai compute infrastructure.
Social media platform provider Myseum also recently pivoted to AI.
The latest rebrand places Allbirds among a growing number of companies attempting to reposition themselves around artificial intelligence, echoing earlier waves of corporate reinvention during the cryptocurrency and blockchain boom, when firms rushed to reorient strategies toward emerging technologies to capture investor interest.
Refocusing efforts on new tech trends is not new on Wall Street. Several companies announced their own cryptocurrencies or pivoted to blockchain during the height of crypto mania.
AI infrastructure company CoreWeave, which went public last year, started in crypto mining before a successful pivot to AI.
Shares of BIRD, which have been highly volatile amid the company’s restructuring, have surged on investor enthusiasm for AI-related business models even as traditional fundamentals in its legacy footwear operations have been unwound.
The company did not immediately provide additional details on revenue projections or the scale of its planned AI infrastructure investments.
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Faustine Ngila is the AI Editor at Impact Newswire, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He is an award-winning journalist specializing in artificial intelligence, blockchain, and emerging technologies.
He previously worked as a global technology reporter at Quartz in New York and Digital Frontier in London, where he covered innovation, startups, and the global digital economy.
With years of experience reporting on cutting-edge technologies, Faustine focuses on AI developments, industry trends, and the impact of technology on society.
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