Tim Brown, the co-founder of shoe company Allbirds, speaks onstage at the OMR Festival in Hamburg, Germany. 

Allbirds, the millennial beige shoe brand that was once a mainstay among affluent tech workers in San Francisco, just made the stunning announcement that it will become an AI cloud computing service. 

According to a Wednesday news release, American Exchange Group, which entered a purchase agreement with Allbirds earlier this year, intends to “build on Allbirds’ legacy and deliver compelling products to Allbirds’ customers” by changing its name to NewBird AI. The company is set to receive $50 million from an investor, and stocks have soared to $19 per share, up from $2.59 earlier this year. 

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“NewBird AI expects to use initial capital from the Facility to acquire high-performance GPU assets, which will be deployed to serve customers requiring dedicated access to AI compute capacity,” the news release said. “NewBird AI’s long-term vision is to become a fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) and AI-native cloud solutions provider.” GPUaaS is a cloud-based service that provides access to computational power without the cost of expensive infrastructure. 

Founded in 2015 by entrepreneur Joseph Zwillinger, who now runs a supplement company with his wife, Elizabeth Zwillinger, Allbirds originally provided practical — if maligned — footwear for everyday life in San Francisco. The merino Wool Runners were a common sight on private charter buses in the Bay Area, quickly becoming known as Silicon Valley’s shoe of choice. 

After going public in 2021, Allbirds was reportedly worth $2.15 billion, but it subsequently failed to generate steady revenue. Though the “Salesforce Ones” gained a cult following among affluent Bay Area tech workers, in recent years, customers have complained about declining quality, stating that newer versions of the shoe feel cheaper, stiffer and heavier than before. 

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In January of this year, about a decade after its inception, Allbirds announced plans to close nearly all of its brick-and-mortar locations in the U.S. and switch to an e-commerce model instead. Following the announcement, retail workers said on social media that they were given just a few hours’ notice via email and Google Meet. 

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Allbirds press representatives did not respond to SFGATE’s request for more information before the time of publication.   

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