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An AI name can send a stock soaring. The .com boom shows how it ends

Companies have revived the .com trick of renaming themselves for a quick stock bump. Patient shareholders risk the losses that followed the 2000 crash

Scott Olson / Getty Images

Allbirds, the wool-sneaker maker turned cloud infrastructure company, was losing money fast before it ever mentioned AI. It lost $77 million last year as its revenue fell 20%, and its annual report warned of "substantial doubt" that it could stay in business. In late March, it agreed to sell its shoe brand to American Exchange Group for $39 million, and in April, it announced that the company left on the Nasdaq $NDAQ would become NewBird AI and rent out the computer chips that run AI programs. Its shares rose as much as 435%.

University of Pennsylvania Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions Gad Allon said the new name says less about AI than about money. "The bet here isn't really, 'We're going to become an A.I. company,'" Allon told Observer. "The bet is, 'We can use this public shell and the current market appetite for anything A.I.-related to raise capital and acquire our way into relevance.'"

Allbirds isn't alone. A day after its announcement, the social media company Myseum added ".AI" to its name, and its shares jumped, too. At least 27 companies have renamed themselves or announced an AI focus since 2023, and their combined stock market value more than doubled at the peak. Small companies made the same move with ".com" in the late 1990s, and their shares jumped just as fast. Shareholders who held those stocks for years afterward watched most of their money disappear, and anyone who owns an AI renamer today risks the same loss.

The immediate benefits of switching to a .com name

In 1998 and 1999, investors bid up a company’s stock as soon as it added .com to its name. Three Purdue University finance........

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