> This announcement either means the AI outside of Demis' team has been neutered, or they're lining Demis up to be the scape goat for missing AI.

I read that to mean the party is over, we are treating that as a strategic subject and are streamlining our organisation. As you rightfully pointed Google basically had two competing organisations with all the complexity associated with that. That’s now over. From now on, there is only one captain steering the ship.