In my experience a thriving industry is usually a bit too busy making money to be too concerned with new technology, but when there is a bit of a downturn, there is pressure to be more competitive and therefore sometimes more focussed investment and effort in new technologies. But, the funds are also more difficult to come across when times are tough!
It’s really hard to know how advanced these new technologies are!! We don’t hear much about them (apart from a private company or two that claim to have them working great?!), which makes it very difficult to know how far from commercial reality they are...