Looks to me like Google has forced AI to make search much cheaper for them than it has ever been, and consequently as good as it can be under that limitation.

Which is still OK to a degree, thanks to progress in AI, but noticeably not as good as it used to be and it shows.

Seems like now even with all their money they can no longer afford to do it without AI, so the "real thing" is priced out of reach not only for budget-conscious orgs such as education, but for everybody :\