The shoe brand that was once a favorite of the Silicon Valley tech scene moves away from shoes and towards what its wearers are most obsessed with: AI.
All the birds announced Wednesday that it would pivot to focus on AI computing infrastructure, changing its name to “NewBird AI.” The company announced it had reached a $50 million deal to fund the new venture.
Shares of the company, which has struggled over the past year, surged more than 300%.
Allbirds said in its statement that it would use its initial capital to purchase high-performance, low-latency graphics processing units – the hardware that powers the AI capabilities known as GPUs – to attempt to grow long-term as a provider of GPU-as-a-service and cloud-native AI solutions.
“The rise in AI development and adoption has created unprecedented structural demand for specialized, high-performance computing that the market is struggling to meet,” the company said in the release. “NewBird AI is being built to help close this gap.”
Once the trendy shoe among the tech elite, Allbirds failed to capitalize on its hot start become a major player in the footwear market, and the company’s stock price fell steadily starting in July 2025. Earlier this year, Allbirds closed all its full-price retail stores in the United States, turning entirely to online sales.
Late last month, Allbirds sold its brand and footwear assets to management and licensing company American Exchange Group for $39 million. American Exchange Group is known for brands like Ed Hardy and Mudd, as well as its tech wearables.
The shift to AI infrastructure comes at a time when demand for AI computing is at an all-time high, with AI companies racing to deliver more and more models.
But sudden moves like this haven’t gone down well in the past. In 2017, during a Bitcoin boom, Long Island Iced Tea pivoted to cryptocurrency, changing its name to Long Blockchain. Later, the Securities and Exchange Commission delisted the shares of the company due to his failure to file financial documents. It is also accused three people of insider trading before the announcement of the change in Long Blockchain which caused its shares to jump almost 400%.
