My entire point is that they aren't ignoring any spaces, they have all future spaces accounted for by having their tentacles in literally everything possible that could be future tech.
Bldinsides come from different industries, so they need to cover their bases from all directions, so that's what they all have done with their projects, products, investments in...AI, Energy, Biology, Transportation, Infrastructure, Waste Disposal, Agriculture the list goes on.
The time of the non-ubiquitous firm is over.
AFGAM aren't software companies, they are innovation conglomerates. I mean why do you think google changed to Alphabet?
Advances and implementations of ML is driving the creation and iteration of products for these companies, as well as helping them run their companies and evaluate where to go next - follow the data as it were.
So it is a critical point that every one of their CEOs has outlined in clear detail over the past few years.
When seen in this light, it would be surprising if ML were a disruptive technology, since it falls more into the "sustaining" category of innovation.
Most of the large tech companies were built on technologies that no-one expected to become world-defining companies at the time.
With all this focus on ML/AI, it would be very surprising if a small ML/AI shop became huge, rather then getting bought or replicated.
Almost by definition, the big companies of the next era will come from the spaces that large companies are ignoring.