Nike debuts AI-designed sneakers ahead of Paris Olympics

High-tech shoe concepts won’t be available for purchase just yet though

Nike has unveiled a slate of 13 hyper-futuristic athletic shoes designed for top athletes like Kylian Mbappé using artificial intelligence ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics this summer.

The Thursday event at the Palais Brongniart in Paris featured prototype shoes for figures like sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson, marathoner Eliud Kipchoge, and NBA star Victor Wembanyama.

The designs themselves, which won’t be available for purchase, featured dramatic features like a helix of fabric curling up the ankle of Ms Richardson’s deeply track shoes, and a spiky, transparent fin shooting off the back of Mr Mbappé’s model.

According to Nike, the shoes were designed by interviewing the brand’s top athletes, and then running their design concepts through AI models to generate prototype ideas.

The models were dubbed part of an “A.I.R.” collection, standing for Athlete Imagined Revolution, a play on the brand’s famous air bubble technology.

The company has used gas-filled bubbles in the soles of certain models since the 1970s, becoming one of the mark’s most famous design features.

“There’s no going back,” John Hoke, the brand’s chief innovation officer, said in a news release. “Form and function — meet fantasy.”

The Paris blowout also featured AR-enhanced statues of Nike athletes like Lebron James, a preview of the company’s national kits for various Olympic teams, and high-profile guests like rapper Travis Scott.