This is a common myth. It likely stems from industry having such high visibility from its marketing budgets and research having such low visibility since it has no incentive to market to the public. The reality is that once something becomes available in the marketplace, there was usually at least a decade of prior research that made that product or service possible. And it is rarely one single inventor or team that made the basic discoveries necessary; it is more often an entire community of scholars working together for decades, sharing results, and building on each others’ work. This was true of nearly every recent trend in machine learning, voice assistants, virtual and augmented reality, the internet, and more — all were built on basic discoveries from many decades prior.
That said, not everyone is excited about toiling away for decades on basic research. Those that do tend to get excited by exploring new frontiers and big mysteries rather than direct impact on products, services, and lives. Industry research and development can be a great middle ground, where you get to play with mature research ideas and find practical applications of them that are ready for everyday use.