You probably heard the news last week that Silicon Valley’s favorite footwear brand, Allbirds, is pivoting to become NewBird AI.
No, that doesn’t mean Allbirds is going to revolutionize the sneaker industry using AI. It’s actually going to enter into a new business entirely, buying up high-powered processing chips to lease to AI companies. This is a wildly cynical play to leverage a zombie company’s name recognition and publicly traded status, combined with hype around AI infrastructure, to make a few quick bucks. (That doesn’t mean all you fans of fine wool-blend sneakers won’t be able to get your fix: The company also agreed to sell the Allbirds intellectual property to American Exchange Group.)
The Allbirds stock shot up 600% on the news, proving how ridiculously detached market narratives have become from underlying business fundamentals.
Still, the whole saga doesn’t mean there aren’t any fashion brands using AI to radically transform their businesses. I’ve been speaking with AI companies and retailers alike about whether the technology can still be used to pull shopping out of the seemingly never-ending Retail Apocalypse.
Mentioned in this issue: Pope Leo XIV, Gigi Hadid, Jessica Chastain, Geoffroy van Raemdonck, Anne Hathaway, Substack, Dr. Nasrin Mostafazadeh, Matt Damon, Saks, Ben McKenzie, Nordstrom, Kendall Jenner, Quince, Sam Altman, José Criales-Unzueta, and more… | 
