ML based handwriting recognition has been powering postal routing for a couple of decades. ML completely dominates some areas and will only increase in impact as it becomes more widely applicable. Getting any technology from a lab demo to a safe and reliable real world product is difficult and only more so when there are regulatory obstacles and people being dragged around by vehicles.

For the purposes of raising money from investors it is convenient to understate problems and generate a cult of magical thinking about technology. The hype cycle and the manipulation of the narrative has been fairly obvious with this one.