Allbirds announced it will rebrand as Smartbird and appointed a chief executive to steer a shift from footwear to AI infrastructure. The firm named Nadia Carlsten, former head of DCAI, as CEO and board member, replacing Joe Vernachio. Lily Yan Hughes, a director since October 2025, will serve as board chair. The rebrand underscores an effort to distance the business from its sneaker image.

The pivot follows an April declaration that Allbirds would abandon shoe sales and begin purchasing servers equipped with AI chips, then leasing compute capacity to enterprise clients. The company briefly adopted the name New Bird AI before settling on Smartbird. Analysts estimate the server purchases could require several hundred million dollars, a scale shift for the former footwear maker.

Carlsten brings cloud experience, having launched an AI supercomputer with Nvidia at DCAI and earlier led Google spin‑off Sandbox AQ and Amazon’s quantum service. Investors will watch how quickly Smartbird can monetize its server fleet, as the AI‑hardware market tops $30 billion annually. If utilization exceeds 70%, margins could rival those of established cloud providers. The move tests leadership depth.