Marketing. AI is the new word for algorithm. I think most people probably feel that search quality is going down; unsurprising given Google's monopoly position.
That's going too far. AI always uses algorithms. What constituted it varied quite a bit. However, we usually allowed the term if it involved machine learning or decision-making based on heuristics. Especially if it was adaptive overtime. The AI's were also usually more resource intensive (slower) than regular algorithms. Kept them out of use in many places until AI field caught up with requirements.
PageRank was a simple, stupid algorithm that produced incredibly smart results. The exact kind of thing that sees widespread deployment with a startup. The description of this AI sounds more like an AI tool in general. It would've been much harder for Google to have started with this. The computers alone would've been prohibitive. So, we can call it an AI.
