It might be a bit naive, but here's to hoping that it's just a stepping stone for a proper alternative search engine.

I was also under the impression that they will create proper search engine for regular users

It is a proper search engine for regular users

It will power regular search results:

Called European Search Perspective (EUSP), the JV now aims to serve around 50% of French queries and 33% of German queries by the end of the year.

And it also has an API 🫨 that AI search engines can use

I bet that was the original plan, then they saw that the goal was nowhere near and decided to rebrand a subpar product "for AI".