The CEO of Allbirds’ new AI biz has a plan, but no team

Smartbird, formerly shoe company Allbirds, has made a dramatic pivot into the artificial intelligence sector, driven by a $100 million capital injection and the appointment of Nadia Carlsten as CEO. Carlsten, an AWS veteran with an engineering PhD, is tasked with building Smartbird from the ground up as an AI infrastructure provider. This strategic shift follows Allbirds' move from a direct-to-consumer shoe purveyor to a tech-focused entity.

Smartbird's core offering will be AI infrastructure, catering to the growing demand for compute power to train and run deep learning models. Unlike hyperscalers, Smartbird will target clients needing direct control over their servers, often due to political or business model considerations, and those prioritizing data sovereignty over public cloud scalability. Carlsten acknowledges the market is nascent but sees significant potential in sectors like pharmaceuticals, energy, finance, and the public sector.

Carlsten emphasizes that Smartbird will not compete directly with hyperscalers or neoclouds on price or sheer scale. Instead, it will focus on agility and control over the infrastructure stack for customers requiring hundreds to thousands of chips, not massive GPU farms. Smartbird aims to deploy compute clusters for several clients by year-end, focusing on specialized workloads rather than broad, cost-optimized solutions.

The transition of Allbirds to Smartbird also saw the company shed its public benefit corporation (PBC) status. Carlsten insists the pivot was a deliberate strategy to carve out a niche in the AI market, not merely chasing a trend. The company's board is committed to Carlsten's long-term vision for Smartbird as a significant player in the specialized AI infrastructure domain.