Due in large part to their laziness with equipment... which is to say, they'd probably take up AI if they thought it could save them on the salaries of the people who might tell them they equipment should have been replaced 30 years ago.

Already in the works. Two recent examples:

https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/exelon-uses-synthetic-data...

https://stanton.house.gov/2022/9/house-passes-stanton-s-dron...