Allbirds Rebrands to Smartbird After Selling Shoe Business

Allbirds, a footwear company known for its sustainable shoes, has transitioned to an artificial intelligence infrastructure provider, rebranding itself as Smartbird. On June 17, 2026, the company announced the completion of its sale of the sneaker and apparel business, as originally disclosed in April. Following this development, Allbirds shares surged by 52%, reaching a price of $5.99.

Nadia Carlsten, previously the CEO of DCAI, a GPU compute infrastructure company, has been appointed as the new president and CEO of Smartbird. Her experience includes work at Google spinoff SandboxAQ and Amazon Web Services, where she contributed to the launch of Amazon's quantum computing service. She holds degrees in chemistry and physics from the University of Virginia and a doctorate in engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

As part of this restructuring, Joe Vernachio has stepped down from his role, with independent director Lily Yan Hughes taking over as board chair. Allbirds initially intended to rebrand as NewBird AI but later adopted the name Smartbird. Carlsten noted, "Smartbird is entering the market at a pivotal moment in the evolution of AI infrastructure. AI is rapidly becoming mission-critical for organizations across every industry, yet many organizations lack a practical path to deploy and operate the dedicated infrastructure these workloads require." She emphasized the opportunity to address the growing demand for enterprise-grade AI infrastructure.

The financing facility has been increased to $100 million to support the company's new direction, aiming to capitalize on the rising need for AI technologies across various sectors.