The Company Formerly Known as Allbirds Is Making a Different Bet
The Company Formerly Known as Allbirds Is Making a Different Bet
The footwear brand built around sustainable sneakers is now trying to sell AI infrastructure. The shift says as much about where capital is flowing as it does about the future of consumer brands.
The product changed entirely. What didn’t change: capital follows wherever the scarce asset is — and right now, that’s compute, not consumer goods.
Business Insider’s Ben Bergman reported that the company formerly known as Allbirds has adopted the name Smartbird, appointed Nadia Carlsten as president and CEO, and formally repositioned itself around AI infrastructure after first announcing plans for a new direction in April. Carlsten, who previously led the Danish Centre for AI Innovation, said the company intends to provide dedicated AI infrastructure for organizations that want AI capacity without having to own and operate the underlying hardware themselves.
Capital follows growth. That mechanism helps explain why a company once associated with wool sneakers and sustainable consumer branding now wants to compete in AI computing. The center of gravity in technology has moved away from applications and toward the physical systems required to run them. GPUs, networking, power, and data centers have become scarce assets, and companies that control access to those assets increasingly occupy a more valuable position than companies selling finished products.
Infrastructure captures spending.
The rebranding itself says something about the economics of AI. For years, startups tried to differentiate themselves through consumer experiences. AI has changed that equation. That imbalance between supply and demand for compute has turned infrastructure providers into strategic gatekeepers — intermediaries positioned to absorb the technical complexity while their customers focus on products and services.
The unusual part is not that Smartbird wants to participate in the AI boom. It is that the company carrying that ambition was once known for shoes. Corporate identities have traditionally evolved gradually. Investors and executives are now willing to abandon established categories entirely if they believe infrastructure offers a larger opportunity — brand equity that took years to build matters less when markets reward access to computing power instead.
Power is moving from companies that package products to companies that control the systems products depend on. The next phase of the AI economy may look less like a race between chatbots and more like a competition over industrial assets. The companies with the strongest position may not be the ones building the most visible products — they may be the ones quietly deciding who gets access to the machines underneath.
