When Allbirds pivoted to artificial intelligence last April, many saw it as a meme stock move: a struggling company chasing the latest fad. But the strategy worked. The direct-to-consumer shoe brand, known for its casual Silicon Valley style, sold its footwear business for $43 million, raised another $100 million from the stock market, and renamed itself Smartbird.
Now Nadia Carlsten, a former AWS executive with a PhD in engineering, must make it work. Carlsten, who previously led European compute company DCAI, started as Smartbird's CEO. "We are recruiting a brand new team for the AI business and getting an office," Carlsten told TechCrunch from Amsterdam. "The shoe business closed yesterday, so that is all done. The first task is rounding up the leadership team, looking for someone to lead infrastructure operations."
A Startup with a Single Founder and a Very Large Seed Round
Smartbird aims to be an AI infrastructure provider, latching onto the seemingly endless demand for compute power to train and run deep learning models. Unlike neoclouds that arbitrage chip prices, Carlsten targets more carefully managed deployments. Ideal Smartbird customers need direct control over the servers running their models, typically for political or business-model reasons, and value data sovereignty over public cloud scalability.
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Carlsten could not yet estimate the market size, arguing it is nascent since many companies are still piloting AI tools. At DCAI, she worked with Novo Nordisk and other European firms interested in data sovereignty. "We certainly have clients in the pharmaceutical, energy, financial, and public sectors," she said.
In Carlsten's view, Smartbird does not compete with hyperscalers or neoclouds but with internal company projects. However, established players like Hewlett Packard and Equinix already offer single-tenant managed AI compute services. The business model is real, but its growth potential may differ from cloud services. Carlsten expects to have compute clusters deployed for several customers by year-end.
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Competing on Specialization, Not Price
Smartbird is unlikely to compete on price since cloud services optimize chip usage 24/7 for the lowest cost. Carlsten believes companies with specialized workflows can operate more efficiently with their own servers. Demand for AI infrastructure is so strong that it boosts stock prices for chipmakers, cloud providers, and energy companies, even convincing investors that orbital data centers are viable. But Carlsten insists Allbirds' transition was carefully planned.
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"It was not, 'Let's do AI because it is hot,'" said Carlsten, who will receive a $700,000 annual salary and stock worth about $9 million. "It was about whether we can build a business that finds this niche and grows over time."
One aspect lost in the pivot was Allbirds' public benefit corporation (PBC) status, intended to enshrine sustainability commitments. PBC charters are often used to highlight non-financial promises, but this change suggests they are not ironclad. Carlsten said Smartbird's board made a long-term commitment to her AI strategy.
For more on AI infrastructure in the US, read about Trump's Apple-Intel chip deal. Also, check Allbirds on Wikipedia to understand the company's background.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/19/the-ceo-of-allbirds-new-ai-biz-has-a-plan-but-no-employees
