Google have wanted to get people out of the web and into an app for a long time and have mostly failed because traditional search is so tied to the open web.
AI Search is a lot less tied to the open web (for better or worse) and so apps make a lot more sense.
Not sure if there's actually been that many more search labs out of Google, but there's certainly been a lot more worth talking about. Impressive to see to be honest.
Still, nice that Google has woken up, even if the search result quality hasn't improved much.
Why do you say that? And, why do they botch their own cash cow - AdWords?
Meta is the perfect example of this. In browser newsfeeds have the same ad load as the app but by steering everyone into an app and then controlling the experience there they make a shit ton more money.