By Purvi Agarwal and Anshuman Tripathy
April 16 (Reuters) – Sneaker company Allbirds’ pivot to AI computing has revived a Wall Street trend in recent years: smaller companies leaning into tech-focused transformations to win over AI-hungry investors.
Allbirds’ shares surged more than six-fold after it announced rebranding itself NewBird AI. It was soon followed by social media firm Myseum, which soared almost 150% after adding “AI” to its name.
As investor appetite for technology continues to reshape businesses, here’s a look at some of the notable pivots by U.S. companies to cash in on the euphoria:
STRATEGY:
Starting off as a software company that helped analyze financial data, Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy transformed into one of the biggest corporate hoarders of bitcoin in 2021 and later rebranded to Strategy.
The stock saw its biggest yearly jumps in 2023 and 2024, with gains of over 300% in each year, as bitcoin doubled in value. The stock was last down over 70% from its all-time high set in November 2024.
CRYPTO MINING TO AI INFRASTRUCTURE:
CoreWeave was originally an ethereum miner founded in 2017, but shut its mining business a few years later. It debuted on the Nasdaq in April 2025 as a cloud infrastructure company valued at $23 billion, and surged over 85% in the year. The firm is up 64% so far in 2026.
Applied Blockchain and HUT 8 both started out as crypto miners, but have been shifting to focus on hosting data centers. The former established itself as Applied Digital early in 2023, while Hut 8 is expanding its data center business.
Growth in Applied Digital’s stock has largely been muted for the last few years, but Hut 8 has posted gains every year since 2023, thanks to both bitcoin prices and demand for data centers.
After emerging from bankruptcy in January 2024, Core Scientific jumped on the AI bandwagon, partnering with CoreWeave to provide infrastructure that it already used for bitcoin mining. Its shareholders rejected an acquisition offer from CoreWeave last year.
TRUMP MEDIA & TECHNOLOGY
Trump Media & Technology, owned largely by U.S. President Donald Trump, was originally a social media firm – parent of the ‘Truth Social’ platform.
It started expanding into digital finance last year with the creation of a bitcoin treasury, a new venture with Crypto.com via a blank-check acquisition company.
The stock had one of its biggest daily jumps in December 2025 when it was considering spinning off the platform into a publicly traded company.
However, it more than halved in value in 2025 despite the appeal of digital token treasuries attracting investor interest.
