Maybe you misunderstood the scope that Google is a search advertising company first and foremost? Alphabet ignores (yes, they essentially invented transformers, etc.., but actual productive efforts likely correlate to predicted TAM or protecting status quo, answering to shareholders while waiting to acquire threats) a market that will eventually usurp their cash cow of first party search ads, because the new market isn't initially as lucrative due to market size. There is also the consideration of cannibalizing their high margin search ads market with an error prone and resource intensive tech that cannot immediately be monetized in a second price auction (both from inventory and bidder participant perspectives). A $10 billion market for Google would be under 3% of revenue, but if the market grows 10x, it is much more attractive, but now the incumbent may be trailing the nascent companies who refined their offerings (without risk of cannibalizing their own offerings) while said market was growing. We are currently at the stage where Google is incorporating Gemini responses and alienating publishers (by not sending monetizable clicks while using their content) while still focusing on monetization via their traditional ad products elsewhere on the SERPs (text search ads, shopping ads). Keep in mind, they also control 3rd party display ads via DoubleClick and Adsense-- but inventory on 3rd party sites will drop and Google will lose their 30%+ cut if users don't leave the SERPs.
Dozens of major news publications have covered the decline of Google's organic search quality decline and emphasis on monetization (ignoring incorrect infoboxes and AI generated answers). See articles such as https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/09/googl... and a collection even posted here on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30348460 . This has played into reasons why people have shifted away from Google. Their results are focused solely on maximizing Google's earnings per mille, as leaked (https://www.wsj.com/tech/u-s-urges-breakup-of-google-ad-busi...) where the ads team has guanxi over search quality. Once Amit Singhal and Matt Cutts left their roles, the focus on monetization over useful SERPs becomes much more evident.
Dozens of major news publications have covered the decline of Google's organic search quality decline and emphasis on monetization (ignoring incorrect infoboxes and AI generated answers). See articles such as https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/09/googl... and a collection even posted here on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30348460 . This has played into reasons why people have shifted away from Google. Their results are focused solely on maximizing Google's earnings per mille, as leaked (https://www.wsj.com/tech/u-s-urges-breakup-of-google-ad-busi...) where the ads team has guanxi over search quality. Once Amit Singhal and Matt Cutts left their roles, the focus on monetization over useful SERPs becomes much more evident.