I think it's more about Google not realizing that search and AI Chat are in fact two different things, even if there is an area of overlap where people are asking some types of question.

And of course just because you're asking a question doesn't mean that you don't care about the answer source, or that you want an answer from a shitty AI rather than a human.

In fact Google's "AI answer" may not even be from AI - it may be a search result from a forum like HN!