Allbirds is a shoe company. Because it’s important that you understand this for the rest of this blog, let’s set some definitions: a shoe company is a company that sells shoes. Shoes are a thing that go on your feet. Got it? Great, let’s continue: Allbirds, the shoe company, announced this morning that it’s pivoting to AI, with a plan to get into “AI compute infrastructure, with a long-term vision to become a fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) and AI-native cloud solutions provider.”
According to CNBC, the company’s stock is up 300% on the news, which comes two weeks after Allbirds sold its intellectual property and other assets to American Exchange Group, a fashion accessories company. The company also closed its US retail stores back in February, though American Exchange Group will continue to sell Allbirds products.
Clearly, things were not going well in the shoe-selling space for the shoe-selling company, and it wants out. Fair enough! But instead of pivoting to, I don’t know, socks, or pants, or other things in the stuff-that-goes-on-your-body-near-your-feet arena in which it is an expert, Allbirds–which is renaming itself to “Newbird AI,” since it sold the Allbirds name--will “acquire high-performance GPU assets, which will be deployed to serve customers requiring dedicated access to AI compute capacity,” according to its investor release.
According to the release, the company has recognized a “market where enterprises, AI developers, and research organizations are unable to secure the compute resources they need to build, train and run AI at scale,” which is true. The company believes that “NewBird AI is being built to help close that gap,” which is false and also unhinged. At a time when data center deals are falling through and AI companies are rationing services to deal with the hardware crunch they themselves caused, why and how a shoe company plans to parachute in to solve this problem is beyond me, a simple small business owner who also on occasion wears shoes. How will Allbirds’ shoe expertise help it in the hardware space? Does the shoe company even know what a GPU is? Allbirds was once the darling of the tech world, so maybe it’s hoping this will suffice?
If you are, despite all mounting evidence, an AI booster, you might see all this as good news–AI is so hot even the shoe company is pivoting! But if you are a normal person who can see the prevailing sentiment and the writing on the wall, the whole thing smacks of a desperation so overwhelming I would almost feel bad for the people involved, if they weren’t rich people who stand to get even richer before this whole thing inevitably goes bust.
If you’d like to learn more about the overlap between the brainrotted horrors of AI and retail clothing, we at Aftermath have you covered.
