you know, there is a third group - a large number of users which find the AI overview useful
They're here, they don't care how they get from point A to point B, the tech used to achieve that result is completely irrelevant to them. AI? Great. Not AI such as the Instant Answers era? Also great. Average Joe does not spend his time thinking about the economics of the web.
But you shouldn't confuse them finding "AI" useful now with them being attached to it long term. It's a hip new tool now, but the novelty will fade and Google will have to re-invent themselves all over again. If anything, they kinda screwed themselves over by calling this "AI". AI is supposed to be something within reach, but always some years away. By wasting that term for the current era, it's gonna suck so hard to think of a new marketing term that's gonna be seen as an improvement in comparison to the term "AI".
Of course, it does not destroy Google's income ... and it destroys the promise Google made long ago, which is to never keep users on Google platforms.
Oh and to add insult to injury, want to bet Opal will force app developers into what you probably never even imaged would happen on the web? Pay-per-view. Not for a video. For a website/app.