{"id":533973,"date":"2026-04-16T11:14:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T11:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/533973\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T11:14:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T11:14:11","slug":"allbirds-shares-soar-580-after-pivot-from-shoes-to-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/533973\/","title":{"rendered":"Allbirds shares soar 580% after pivot from shoes to AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

NewBird AI will buy advanced graphic processing units (GPUs) – computer chips that power AI, Allbirds said in a statement, external<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The company said it had seen a “gap in the market” that has left many businesses without enough computing power because the industry cannot keep up with demand.<\/p>\n

Its long-term plan is to offer on-demand graphics chips and cloud services that are specially built for AI, it added.<\/p>\n

The Allbirds brand will be owned by fashion conglomerate American Exchange Group, which includes names like Ecko Unltd and Aerosoles, following a $39m deal announced in March.<\/p>\n

Allbirds chief executive Joe Vernachio said the move will allow the Wool Runner maker to “thrive in the years ahead”.<\/p>\n

Branding consultant Wei Kan from Conduit Asia likened the move to a “liquidation” rather than a pivot, using the stock market shell of its shoe brand to move into an unrelated business.<\/p>\n

Retail analyst Hitha Herzog said the excitement over Allbirds “just by putting AI in an announcement” makes it “clearly a meme stock”.<\/p>\n

The meme stock phenomenon gained prominence during the Covid-19 pandemic when some company’s shares surged in value due to strong interest from retail investors was boosted on social media.<\/p>\n

There is “certainly AI mania that is going on”, given the lack of proof of product or earnings from the company related to its new business, Herzog said.<\/p>\n

Allbirds was founded in 2015 by a former football player Tim Brown and a clean-technology businessman Joey Zwillinger.<\/p>\n

The footwear firm opened dozens of shops in the US and around the world including the UK, New Zealand, China and Singapore, targeting casual joggers, office workers and yoga lovers.<\/p>\n

But the company has struggled to turn a profit since it listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York five years ago.<\/p>\n

Its stock market value had plummeted from a high of more than $500 a share to around $2.50 just before the AI pivot was announced.<\/p>\n

The announcement gives the NewBird AI a shell to trade on, but “a stock going from $3 to $17 on a press release doesn’t restore $4bn in destroyed value,” Kan said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NewBird AI will buy advanced graphic processing units (GPUs) – computer chips that power AI, Allbirds said in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-533973","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}