What I don't understand is how do you square that with google still reporting growth in ads revenues. Surely google's business should tank by that much (not even taking into account the additional cost of processing a seach with AI).

> What I don't understand is how do you square that with google still reporting growth in ads revenues.

Advertiser sees fewer hits from ad campaign, assumes it's their competitors, then raises their budget slightly to better compete in the ad auction.

Multiply that by about 300m businesses.

The signals that Google's customers (the advertisers) get is not "Your ad was ignored after we answer the user's query directly", it's "Your ad was ignored". The advertisers cannot tell why the ad was ignored.

Maybe… it was always a lie?