I think that the issue here is that the definition of search/results has changed (in my mind at least they were always - what knowledge are you looking for, followed by, here are the results that carry that knowledge OR point in the right direction, but I recognise that other people will hold more strict definitions)
AI has changed how I find and synthesise information in ways Google never managed - we've always had the problem with Google that we couldn't express exactly what we were looking for - that much I think we can both agree has changed dramatically for the better with LLMs
Edit: I have always held that searching for an answer (whether it be internet or human) has always been about asking the right person, the right question, at the right time.
LLMs most certainly improve that - I don't need to know the exact technical term I am looking to solve in order to get the results I want (eg. I can ask how to "stop (a) function from running too many times" instead of the industry terms "throttling" or "debouncing")
> Edit: I have always held that searching for an answer (whether it be internet or human) has always been about asking the right person, the right question, at the right time.
At the peak of search they're describing, asking a question was how you'd get subpar results. The best way to search was for things you expected to be in the results - like, for a simplistic example, you wouldn't search for "how do I...", you'd search for something like "How to..."
Yeah - the plan was to word match - having the right words in the query was the key.
It was also why (one) SEO was to fill the page in a hidden block, every word that could possibly be related (synonyms) to the page content.
On that note I am wondering how the poisoning of the content for AI is going to occur (eventually someone is going to work out how to make LLMs say "Eat at Joes - 1313 Mockingbird lane" whenever someone [else] asks some food related question)