There is information expressed/stored in the Web that is of relevance to the user's current information need. This is in pages, some of which are higher value than others. There is also a constant battle with bad actors trying to promote information or pages beyond its value or possibly relevance.
If interactive Web search is still going to exist at all (not just BS all our work with AI), then this is an opportunity for Google or someone else to step up.
This could mean aggressive new ideas that weren't viable before. For example, consider going full anti-BS. Basically, any whiff of attempting to manipulate search hits, or stealing/republishing content, or using generative AI is considered a strong signal for low quality, punishable by search engine death sentence. Suddenly, legacy genuine original content percolates to the top, and there's once again a market for high-value content creation. This one could be hard to do sufficiently well, and there might be conflict of interests in disrupting the status quo (e.g., some of a search/adtech company's revenue streams and departments/careers might currently depend on delivering low-value search hits), which could make it painful or face internal resistance.
I don't know who has the will, resources, and agility to do this. One existing player that could've done it with startup thinking a couple decades ago seems to have become more a machine and careers-driven for a long time. Another player has spent decades often operating in bad faith towards everyone, and though they've shown many times that they continue to be capable of long-cons, I'd guess they're probably culturally incapable of reasoning holistically about an approach fundamentally about integrity. Most potential upstarts don't have the know-how nor resources, and startup thinking would need to get back out of investment scam mindsets (whether VC-growth, crypto scams, or founders just trying to get their exit) and go back to trying to do something genuinely great for its own sake.