It's worth mentioning that AI in its current form was not AT ALL a part of Google's corporate strategy until Microsoft and OpenAI forced their hand.
Remember their embarrassing debut of Bard in Paris and the Internet collectively celebrating their all but guaranteed demise?
It's Google+ all over again. It's possible that Pike, like many, did not sign up for that.
How did Microsoft and OpenAI force their hand? Google could just as easily not waste money on AI, use the corresponding lack of notice-me-sempai demands from their products that their users use AI everywhere as a powerful differentiator, and deliver the difference to shareholders.
They got punished hard in the markets after ChatGPT 3. Many saw (still see) it as a search killer, which is Google's bread and butter. They couldn't not respond.