I think you might have it backwards. This team seems very focused on fundamental open-ended NeRF/gaussian/lightfield research. It is a natural and good thing that someone at Google found a reasonably relevant way to apply some of the tech the team has developed. Finding an application of the tech within Google helps justify continued investment in fundamental research and provides a source of usage data and feedback to the team. Also, who wouldn't want to see what they made get used by millions of people instead of living only on a conference demo page?