I Didn’t Expect to Like Nike’s Wildly Futuristic Robotic Shoes. Then I Tried Them

Technology is like water. You can try to stop it. You might successfully stall it. But sooner or later, it will find a way through. More times than not, your best bet is to simply direct it someplace where it can do a bit of good.

Since the beginning, Nike has bet on innovation as the brand’s key difference maker. Cofounder Bill Bowerman used his wife’s waffle iron to fashion track spikes out of rubber. Half a century later, the Vaporfly ushered in running’s carbon revolution.

Though decades apart, both technologies were guided by a shared premise: just make people quicker. And they did. Despite efforts to thwart their development, including drafting new laws of international athletics, records are falling like flies in almost every distance across the field.

Jack Seemer for Gear Patrol

The Alphafly, a successor to the Vaporfly optimized for marathons, currently holds both the men’s and women’s world records, not to mention countless personal bests across the entire talent spectrum; it’s still the only shoe to go under two hours across 26.2 miles.

In that light, it’s probably tempting to reduce one of Nike’s latest innovations — robotic, battery-powered shoes that basically act as e-bikes for your feet — as the next stop in that trajectory. At least it was for me.

But that’s missing the broader promise of what the brand is calling Project Amplify. 

Fortunately, in an effort to find out what that is, I got to be one of the first people in the world to test this wildly futuristic technology on the rooftop of Nike’s headquarters in New York City.

Nike

Additive innovation

For decades, humans have been drawn to powered wearables, commonly referred to as “exoskeletons.”

In the 1960s, General Electric developed a full-body suit called the Hardiman to help workers lift heavy objects. (Funnily enough, it never got off the ground.)

More recently, Arc’teryx unveiled its own Project Amplify: a pair of motorized hiking pants made in partnership with the Google-born startup Skip.

Nike

But no one has yet developed a product to catch on beyond the commercial and rehabilitation sectors, let alone at scale.

Doing so at Nike, says Michael Donaghu, who leads the team behind Project Amplify, means approaching the problem with a different point of view than something like the Vaporfly — or really anything else in the brand’s existing quiver.

Nike

“As an athlete, you have an inherent amount of power and energy. Most of our job has been to figure out how to have you lose less of it, kind of like this subtractive innovation,” Donaghu told me as I put on the bottom half of Project Amplify: a rather pedestrian-looking pair of shoes that, for now, feature a plate, ZoomX foam and a speed-lacing system similar to Boa.

Nike

“From an innovator standpoint,” he went on, “it’s super fun saying that we actually want to give you more power.”

That power comes in the form of an articulating arm that, within seconds, connects to the heel of the shoe. Powering the contraption is a calf-mounted battery that you can wear over skin or pants.

Nike

Nike

The whole thing took me mere seconds to assemble, and as I started to make my way around a large outdoor space on the top floor of Nike’s New York City office, I found myself surprised by how comfortable it was. I wouldn’t say the system disappeared into the background, per se, but I could move freely with no noticeable difference in my gait.

According to Donaghu, that has been one of the biggest challenges facing Project Amplify.

“Your gait is like a fingerprint, it’s unique to you,” he said. “We can group you into a quadrant, but because we’re all different, this device has to be a lot smarter than what’s going on in a bike. A wheel is pretty consistent.”

What’s more, people can be fickle, few more so than runners who have a hard enough time adapting to new versions of a traditional shoe like the Nike Pegasus.

“We’ve learned that, even if their gait suggests what the power should be, people are going to have a preference,” Donaghu added.

Nike

Right now, the level of power can be dialed in with a smartphone app, with three levels of assistance to choose from.

It’s shocking how quickly your body — and mind — can adapt to something like Project Amplify, even maxed out.

As I ran laps around Nike’s outdoor space, testing the different degrees of boost, it only took a minute or two to acclimate to the feeling: a scooping sensation that lifts each foot, then nudges it forward.

Frankly, the most telling indicator of their input came when I turned off the power. My feet came to a sudden thud, and it felt like I gained 20 pounds below my waistline.

To be clear, Project Amplify doesn’t do all the work for you. It doesn’t even do most of it. You still have to pick up your feet and run. That said, they are undeniably effective at reducing bodily stress and load.

Nike

In terms of gains, Donaghu wouldn’t cite a hard number, but he described Project Amplify as “multiples higher” than what Nike accomplished with early versions of the Vaporfly, a shoe that famously made elite runners up to four percent more efficient.

“The reason we’re trying not to quote percentages is because we’re not done,” Donaghu said. There is currently no timeline for a widespread release. However, he did offer a hint.

“With the Olympics, we work on a four-year timeline,” he quipped. The next Summer Games will take place in Los Angeles in 2028.

Power to the people

So, at the end of the day, who is Project Amplify really for?

At face value, the most obvious use cases are those around accessibility, such as encouraging seniors to stay active or helping a casual jogger keep pace with their friend on a weekend-long run.

But it can also serve more serious athletes, too. I can see Project Amplify being used to help rehabilitate elite runners after an injury or minimize strain in the days leading up to a big race.

“Once you get it in the hands of athletes, they’re going to do whatever they do with it,” Donaghu said.

Nike

Regardless of the market, one thing is for sure. Project Amplify feels inevitable, especially in the age of AI. For better or worse, humans tend to err toward the path of least resistance, seeking out tools to curb their suffering — or at least those that make life a little smoother.

The skeptic in me wanted to reject Project Amplify from the get-go. And in prototype form, there’s really no getting around their rawness: the shoes are loud, squeaking with every step, and they lack the slick, streamlined form of a shoe like the Vaporfly. Furthermore, the battery only lasts around 30 minutes.

But they’re also pretty darn fun. And there’s definitely something here, assuming Nike can find a way to produce them at scale (and make them quieter).

Nike

Though I only got limited feet time, I already want a pair for recovery runs or an attempt at the mythical 108-mile UTMB route, a dream run near the top of my bucket list.

Nike has long inspired dreamers with its slogan, “Just do it.”

If the brand is right, Project Amplify is the promise of a product that can turn everyday people into runners and maybe, just maybe, dreamers into doers.

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