Wishful thinking? I think it's quite hard to make any prediction, and people are very biased for "political" reasons. It's entertaining to read, but I wouldn't take too much values from these comments.
Because Google owns the search marker and all its profits currently. Anything Google does to compete will cause them to make less money than they do now. Product managers are going to be very scared and angry.
Having the technology or know how is still miles away from a product that is live. Google have the former, Microsoft handed over bags of cash for the latter.
It's especially awkward for them because as market leader in search they can't really afford to fumble this, which anecdotally they seem to be.
Whenever I hear about Google and AI, it's always because some HR issue has spilled out of the company into the public. That doesn't inspire confidence that they're taking AI seriously rather than having an AI group around to mark some checkboxes.
They could. But this isn't something that just happens overnight. The hasty, public responses by Google point towards them being caught with their pants down. If they did have something close in the pipeline, silence would be more likely.
Chatbots don't monetize as well as the current search does. Much harder to get people to click on ads. Google worried that cannibalizing their search product will kill margins and profit.
