Allbirds Quit Selling Wool Sneakers, Renamed Itself Smartbird AI, and the Stock Jumped 39%

Allbirds, the company that built a brand on sustainable wool sneakers, decided footwear was beneath it and pivoted to AI compute infrastructure, rebranding first as NewBird AI and now as Smartbird. The shoemaker installed a new chief executive who used to run AWS quantum computing, and investors rewarded the costume change by sending shares up 39% in a single Wednesday. A day after the original rebrand, a social media platform called Myseum scrambled to slap AI on its name too, because the magic word still prints money for anyone willing to say it. The last time companies pulled this stunt they were calling themselves blockchain, and the shoes were at least real. CNBC on the Allbirds pivot to AI