Would Google hire some "fresh" college graduate to be the VP of Search?
Yes.
Freely admit that I, too, tend to take the AI answer at the top for most searches, thus little click through to a source site. That said, those kind of quick searches are for very general data (like the capital of Whateveristan) and don't really count as a "search".
Evergreen does not mean ever-flowing. In time YOUR content (or the data underneath) will appear on hundreds of thousands of sites in a few years, diluting the number of hits YOUR site will receive in the future.
g, on the other hand, has updates that deprecate keywords, links, etc. as a refinement of INTENT (and dollars) and that, too, will have an impact.
Then, too, there is the cycle of things human. Interests change, evolve, mutate generation by generation and if you've been around long enough you can SEE that happen in real life as well as the web. What was once bright, shiny and desired becomes hokey, old-hat and tired.
Geo-political also intrudes, often with regulations, taxes, viewpoints, heck, even kinetic conflict, that might impact viewership on a national or global presence. Not often, but can't be ignored.
Financial markets, tariffs, trade wars, all matter to some extent as that certainly impacts any site with a commerce intent.
All the above is merely an indication that there are OTHER FORCES that are in play, not just g or AI.
