A Struggling Shoe Brand's Stock Just Shot Up 800% As It Pivots To AI
On Wednesday, April 15, the once-popular shoe brand Allbirds announced that it had agreed to a $50 million deal to make the development of AI computing infrastructure its new primary business focus. This announcement came just two weeks after the company announced it was selling off all of its intellectual property — and many of its holdings — to the fashion conglomerate American Exchange Group for $39 million. If all goes according to plan, Allbirds will soon be operating under the name NewBird AI — with a primary focus on making graphics processing units, or GPUs, in order to further advancements in AI cloud computing.
However, this significant change to Allbirds' business model is still awaiting approval from stockholders — with the company expecting the decision in mid-May 2026. That said, those with a stake in the company have plenty of reasons to approve the change. For several years, Allbirds' stock has been on a fairly steady decline, with share prices closing at $2.49 on April 14, 2026. Then, the morning of Wednesday's announcement saw stock prices shoot up to as much as $23 per share — an increase of well over 800%. This trajectory, combined with the fact that Allbirds hinted at some potentially hefty dividend payouts later in 2026 will likely prove difficult for shareholders to say no to.
The NewBird AI decision has already left victims in its wake
They might not have known it at the time, but Allbirds employees may have already felt the effects of this decision when the company made the decision to shut down all of its retail stores back in February 2026 — a move that, in hindsight, closely aligns with several tech celebrities' predictions that AI will cost people jobs. While rebranding from shoe retailer to tech might be somewhat unprecedented, major companies have performed drastic shifts in strategy in the past — though with extremely mixed results. While it remains to be seen if NewBird AI will sink or swim, if Redditors' predictions that the AI bubble will eventually burst come true then far more people than Allbirds' retail staff will likely wind up out of a job.
It's also worth noting that, in the grand scheme of the AI industry, Allbirds' $50 million deal is a drop in the bucket. The big players in the tech industry are expected to spend upwards of $700 billion on AI advancement by the end of 2026, and even a smaller startup like Jeff Bezos' Project Prometheus has already received billions in funding.