I feel the same way about consumer AI tools now. Gemini and ChatGPT have been abysmal lately. They can no longer be relied on to do multi-turn searching and thinking.

Before, they could stay in thinking mode for more than 7 minutes. For example, "find a source for this claim" would search, analyze, and self-adjust the query. Nowadays, even if I push for it, I cannot make these tools work for more than 30 seconds before they give generic answers, even in "Pro" mode.