The manufacturer of eco-responsible sneakers Allbirds decided on Wednesday to become an AI company overnight. An unprecedented commercial and stock market shift which led to a spectacular 600% jump on the stock market for this company which was on the verge of bankruptcy. Is AI making certain investors lose their minds in search of new speculative adventures?

Published on: 04/16/2026 - 8:00 p.m.

The manufacturer Allbirds, the former star of sneakers, has become the undisputed king of the 180° commercial turn... applauded wildly by the American Stock Exchange. The American company has just announced, Wednesday April 15, its complete change of purpose: from now on, Allbirds, a pioneer in eco-responsible shoes worth $4 billion in 2021, will do artificial intelligence (AI), and nothing but artificial intelligence. For the occasion, the company founded in 2015 will even change its name to NewBirds AI.

A surprising, disconcerting or exciting change in sector? Investors seem (for now) to have chosen the latter option and Allbirds shares jumped nearly 600% on Wednesday after its announcement.

When Barack Obama supported Allbirds

However, this transition from shoe making to the management of AI data centers “defies logic”, assures Grégoire Kounowski, head of investment consulting for the management firm Norman K.

It is already difficult to imagine that shoe manufacturers could reinvent themselves as AI specialists overnight. “There has been no thoughtful plan for a gradual and planned transition to a new sector of activity,” notes Daniele D’Alvia, specialist in the banking and financial sectors at Queen Mary University of London.

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Furthermore, Allbirds and NewBirds AI are as similar in spirit as a pair of shoes and a piece of computer code. Indeed, when it was launched in 2015, Allbirds defined itself as the precursor of eco-responsible and trendy sneakers for dynamic young executives. Allbirds had then become one of the “flagship brands of the liberal golden age of Silicon Valley, for employees who thought they could show their attachment to a low-carbon future by purchasing responsibly”, explained CNN on Thursday April 16.

“Barack Obama even promoted these shoes,” points out Daniele D’Alvia, a specialist in the banking and financial sectors at Queen Mary University in London.

Nothing to do in spirit with NewBirds AI. Indeed, their first step into the world of AI – a partnership to manage data centers – corresponds to one of the most energy-intensive activities in artificial intelligence. Not really very eco-responsible.

Like in the dotcom era?

Since its heyday in 2021, Allbirds has also “made a series of bad economic decisions, such as opening a large number of physical stores all over the world, which led to a massive drop in stock market valuation and a deterioration in the economic health of the company,” notes Alexander Dryden, financial markets specialist at the University of London.

Jumping into the deep end of AI may thus “look like a desperate attempt by a company struggling to keep its head above water,” says this expert who previously worked for the investment bank JP Morgan. “It’s their last card before bankruptcy,” adds Daniele D’Alvia. Before his economic gamble, Allbirds was only worth $39 million.

Instead of sanctioning this attempt to reinvent itself which is based only on a $50 million loan obtained by Allbirds, investors seem to be seduced. It is all the more surprising "as the leaders said nothing or almost nothing about their plan in the press release announcing these changes", marvels Alexander Dryden.

“This shows that there is always a certain irrationality among investors when it comes to AI,” says this specialist.

Read alsoGameStop: when stock market internet users put down the chatter of speculators

For the experts interviewed by France 24, this episode has the air of "the dotcom crisis of the late 1990s, when it was enough for a company to add '.com' to its name to raise money", notes Daniele D'Alvia.

Other companies in decline have tried in the past to reinvent themselves on the stock market by changing their sector to follow the latest fashionable tech trend. At the end of the 2010s, “there were companies that converted to bitcoin or bet on the metaverse,” explains Grégoire Kounowski.

Thus, in 2017, Long Island Iced Tea Corp., a New York soft drink company, transformed itself overnight into Long Island Blockchain to take advantage of the craze for cryptocurrencies. Consequence: the stock jumped by more than 400%. A few days later, all the stock market euphoria had subsided.

“Lotto ticket”

Allbirds also has everything “from the same stock”, assures Grégoire Kounowski. A term which designates, since the beginning of the 2020s and the GameStop affair, these small stock market values ​​which attract individual investors who discuss and identify improbable companies on which to bet by exchanging on community sites like Reddit. “There is a ripple effect which pushes these investors to participate en masse to be able to say afterwards that they were present when the Allbirds share suddenly rose 600%,” explains Grégoire Kounowski.

“It’s a bit like taking a lottery ticket,” summarizes Daniele D’Alvia. Most likely, Allbirds stock will collapse quickly, as was the case with Long Island Blockchain. But there is also a scenario in which NewBirds AI manages to survive long enough, "until a big name in AI decides to buy this company", emphasizes Alexander Dryden. In which case, stock marketers who bet on this improbable horse could win big.

The risk is that the Allbirds example will inspire others. “If more and more companies in distress try to get out of it by reconverting to AI without having the slightest know-how in this area, it will not be a good sign for this market,” fears Alexander Dryden.

Fortunately, these are “generally isolated cases and epiphenomena which disappear”, assures Grégoire Kounowski. Daniele D'Alvia also does not believe in an epidemic of eccentric reconversions. “If it seems to have worked for Allbirds, it’s also because the brand already had a certain reputation,” he assures. Not every distressed company can boast of having had Leonardo DiCaprio as an investor.

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