In mid-April, the eco-friendly footwear brand Allbirds, then a "$39 million shell of its former $2.2 billion self," sold its assets and intellectual property to rebrand as an artificial intelligence company, causing its shares to vault "by 582% in a single day." According to ChatGPT, several factors converged to fuel the boom. ChatGPT explained that "when a struggling consumer brand suddenly aligns itself with AI, investors often reprice it—not based on current earnings, but on future optionality," coining this psychology as "the Nvidia effect." Additionally, before the pivot, Allbirds was trading in the "$2 to $3 penny-stock range" with a minuscule market cap, allowing investors to scoop up shares cheaply; ChatGPT noted that "small caps = easier to move," "thin liquidity = price can spike fast," and "low expectations = any 'hope' is explosive." Short-squeezers were also at the heart of the story, as declining sales and profitability had drawn short sellers; when the AI rebrand launched, short sellers rushed to cover positions, accelerating the rally. Finally, retail and momentum traders followed, creating a "self-reinforcing trade" where "price action itself became the story."