Shoe Company Allbirds Ditches Footwear for AI and Stock Explodes 580%

Allbirds is abandoning shoes for artificial intelligence. The struggling footwear brand announced a $50 million deal to become an "AI compute infrastructure" company called NewBird AI. Shares surged more than 580% on the news. The pivot is dramatic. Allbirds once graced the feet of Barack Obama and Ben Affleck. Now it plans to offer on-demand graphics chips and cloud services built for AI workloads. The Allbirds brand itself goes to fashion conglomerate American Exchange Group for $39 million. Analysts aren't convinced. Branding consultant Wei Kan called the move a "liquidation" using the company's stock market shell. Retail analyst Hitha Herzog labeled it "clearly a meme stock," noting the AI mania driving excitement despite no proof of product or earnings.