Smartbird pursues AI infrastructure pivot after Allbirds footwear exit

Highlights

Smartbird sold its Allbirds footwear business to American Exchange Group in March for $39 million, enabling a pivot to AI infrastructure.
Shares surged by as much as 800% following the AI pivot, but Smartbird's CEO emphasizes building a durable growth path over short-term market moves.
Smartbird targets businesses lacking in-house AI, offering capital-efficient infrastructure solutions and operates remotely to optimize resources.

Leadership strategy behind the business overhaul

As reported by Business Insider, Carlsten discussed the company's transformation on Thursday at The Long Play, saying the former shoe business was underperforming before the group sold its footwear operations and rebranded as Smartbird.

Allbirds rose quickly in the late 2010s as a sustainable sneaker brand favored in Silicon Valley, then went public in 2021 before sentiment turned against many direct-to-consumer companies. The business was sold to American Exchange Group in March for $39 million, clearing the way for a shift toward AI infrastructure.

Carlsten, who became CEO in June, says she joined because she wanted to build in AI infrastructure and saw the company as being in the right place at the right time. She says her early priorities have included assembling a new team, evaluating technologies and building a pipeline of customers as the company effectively operates like a startup.

While Smartbird's shares briefly surged as much as 800% after the AI pivot and later retreated, Carlsten says short-term market moves matter less than putting the company on a path to durable growth. She argues that reinvention is a necessary part of corporate life, even when it unfolds under public scrutiny.

Customer focus and outlook for the AI market

Smartbird is targeting companies that have not yet built AI systems into their operations and want outside help rather than developing infrastructure internally. Carlsten says the company's model is designed to provide the right infrastructure for each customer while remaining less capital intensive than some rivals' approaches.

She says the business does more than provide access to GPUs, framing its offer as a broader system that customers can use to deploy AI while staying focused on their core operations. That approach also shapes Smartbird's remote-first setup, with Carlsten arguing that much of the company's work is carried out virtually or in data centers rather than in a conventional office.

On the wider market, Carlsten says concerns about an AI bubble do not undermine the underlying technology or the likelihood of continued adoption. She says periods of heavy funding and uneven outcomes are common when transformational technologies emerge, even if some companies do not ultimately prosper.

In our earlier report on KPMG’s CEO survey on AI agents, we noted that many large U.S. companies are seeing measurable efficiency and growth gains, even if only a small share of leaders consider the technology transformational so far. The survey also highlighted that CEOs expect continued hiring, retraining, and sustained investment in AI infrastructure as organizations modernize processes and build the talent and data foundations needed to scale AI.

This material may contain third-party opinions, none of the data and information on this webpage constitutes investment advice according to our Disclaimer. While we adhere to strict Editorial Integrity, this post may contain references to products from our partners.