It also fits with ad delivery, if that is the route they are going to go with consumer (non-API usage) gemini. Their cash cow is still ads, and will likely remain ads they aren't suddenly going to be come a frontier lab selling access to a model.

Fast answers, using their search as grounding, that can parse keywords and spit out a few ads is where Gemini Flash is going to head. That, and the agentic actions stuff they showed off at I/O with Google shopping, ordering food, etc. Speed is important there.