@datarama
Google "AI overview" is their old #Ai model, it's a hybrid system RAGing off their search engine with an ancient AI that is likely preceding the already sub standard Gemini 1.5-7
In fact when #google first deployed it Gemini was but a twinkle in the devs eye, so it's some dead ended Bard version.
Why do they use it?
1) Because it uses little compute comparing to the later reasoner models. Scale it across 16billion searches a day, it's $1,600,000 / day on the cheapest query AI cost or a more realistic $160million per day. So it makes perfect sense financially to tune the engine so it's right 95% of the time so you can save $100mil a day.
2) Frankly, because vast majority of queries can be satisfactorily served.
3) The quality of #googlesearch has been documented to decline so you spend more time on their page generating ad revenue.
Edit; numbers
#aioverview