Theorizing, but I'm guessing that before LLMs, people weren't using anything for situations like these. As people started using LLMs, people's use cases grew, LLMs got slower and more expensive, and people lost the wow-factor and are now worrying about price. Great timing to launch a product like this, where certain use cases can be distilled down into something faster and cheaper.
There's probably other areas where people are using LLMs where a more tailored ML solution might work better.
There's probably other areas where people are using LLMs where a more tailored ML solution might work better.