I've worked in lots of big corps as a consultant. Every one raced to harness the power of "big data" ~7 years ago. They couldn't hire or spend money fast enough. And for their investment they (mostly) got nothing. The few that managed to bludgeon their map/reduce clusters in to submission and get actionable insights discovered... they paid more to get those insights than they were worth!
I think this same thing is happening with ML. It was a hiring bonanza. Every big corp wanted to get an ML/AI strategy in place. They were forcing ML in to places it didn't (and may never) belong. This "recession" is mostly COVID related I think - but companies will discover that ML is (for the vast majority) a shiny object with no discernible ROI. Like Big Data, I think we'll see a few companies execute well and actually get some value, while most will just jump to the next shiny thing in a year or two.
I think this same thing is happening with ML. It was a hiring bonanza. Every big corp wanted to get an ML/AI strategy in place. They were forcing ML in to places it didn't (and may never) belong. This "recession" is mostly COVID related I think - but companies will discover that ML is (for the vast majority) a shiny object with no discernible ROI. Like Big Data, I think we'll see a few companies execute well and actually get some value, while most will just jump to the next shiny thing in a year or two.