My personal takeaway was that I don't know as much as I think. I didn't produce any data at the time to prove my point (not that I would have known how to), and

My personal takeaway was that I don't know as much as I think. I didn't produce any data at the time to prove my point (not that I would have known how to), and because of that it's hard for me to analyse the situation more meaningfully as to why I was wrong. Why they were successful in the end: the team struggled for some time before they got momentum with a single really large customer that put in resources, and made other customers follow. It's not that the tech got better that much, customers were just more willing after they saw one of the leaders in that space invest in that approach, and they were afraid of falling behind. It was not because of machine learning, but despite of it.