Yes you're right and Google is already taking the same path from what I see. For some search queries like for a place or a personality it shows info in a modular format like a collection of popular and most searched about them with an android 13 theme.

If this pay-to-be-shown model is adopted by Google then from where will the websites make money? Currently, they make most of it by serving ads the web page. Hope most of the info on the internet doesn't get paywalled

Google assistant is halfway there I guess, they're testing out a lot of AI models from what I've read and have released a beta called imagen that can do text to image

>SEO as a thing will be dead soon though.

It's business related but, how will a GPT type AI-based SE generate revenue for the company that made it as the current gen SEs mainly rely on sponsored links and Ads? Also, these new ai based tools are currently many times more expensive than a regular SE when it comes to executing a search request