AI summary isn't bad at all, but people don't understand it and Google hasn't explained it very well. It is just RAG. It is a summarization of the documents that are on the first page of the SERP. People think it is answering their question independently, but that's not what it does. It takes the docs that are top ranked from web search and digests them.

The corresponding "AI overview" feature of Gmail is amazing. It digests the messages that match your search. Because it is using your own docs, the output is way better. Or, at least, mine is. Maybe your inbox is full of lies but mine isn't.