The point of writing an essay is not to learn how to produce an essay. It's to learn analytical thinking, research, and argument skills.
The kind of essays I had to write in schools were more about nice sounding words and less the content. CheatGPT can produce nice sounding words, so I am hoping that the focus will move towards rewarding content.
What you were forced to write in school. I readily admit that I had an quality of education several SDs higher than usual, but the trite "5 paragraph" nonsense is neither universal or (more importantly) inevitable.