Sure, as a search engine replacement it's totally fine and works reasonably well, but this is also because Google as search engine has regressed dramatically since it's aggressively pushing products at the top of the search results instead of answering questions.
But "a slightly better search engine" sounds much less interesting to investors than "will completely transform human civilization" ;)
That was the internet, search engines were just the logical consequence to make the information stored in the internet more accessible. And today's AI is also more or less 'just' a lossy compressing of the information that was accumulated on the internet over the last 50 years. Without internet no AI.
But "a slightly better search engine" sounds much less interesting to investors than "will completely transform human civilization" ;)