Shouldn't the interviewing engineer know the answers to these business questions beforehand during their research of the company? (particularly if the company is upfront about their ML/AI-usage)
Usually you're only going to get good answers to these questions after they've made you an offer.
Good question! Many pre-launch startups lack an online presence, so it’d be hard to tease out answers before talking to someone.
In my experience the answers I find on the company home page and the answer I get when asking the question in an interview only rarely sync up perfectly and the difference can be very illuminating.