You might not need machine learning
It is a nice, albeit problematic example. Nonetheless I find many such examples in my daily work as a Data Analyst.<p>Regarding recommender systems I see many companies trying neural nets and so many other fancy ML stuff for things that - in AB-tests are always outperformed by basic rules.<p>I understand the fun it is to build stuff and to use the new hot stuff. And at least for many analysts and marketing people as well as shop product owners this is new hot shit.<p>I also understand, that it is way more easy to get management to hand out the big bucks for something that is the new rage, as they tend to read the respective soundbites in their manager magazines.<p>But as said - I see it underperforming in tests nearly all the time. Not only, but esp. if you take the costs of development and maintenance into account. These systems cost  more to build, more to enhance, more to run and bring in less real business value 70 - 90 percent of all the times I have seen them.<p>But they are presented to management in shiny presentations from agencies that need to sell the new hot shit to their clients to show that they are relevant. Because, as said, management thinks they need it and are often not open to agencies telling them, that the business value could be better served otherwise. Because in the end for a manager it is often times more valuable to show a fancy state of the art project to his&#x2F;her higher ups than creating real business value.