SEO Work Feeling Subjective to Google?

Hey fellow SEO's, I have an odd feeling i want to discuss with everyone. I'm an SEO manager for an agency and,most of my clients are local service-based. I've sort of been bummed out with SEO as a career lately, and maybe it's just the clients I work with idk. With the intro of AI overviews and other Google updates, my ongoing work is less important now. Most of these clients are pretty well off and mostly need maintenance, but even then, sometimes I think, ok, let's optimize some meta descriptions, but why, if Google doesn't use them or even have a set character length? I mostly feel off because I can objectively do the right work and have everything in place and 'optimized'. Still, ultimately, Google is the ultimate judge of my work and results, which frustrates me when I'm trying to report to clients and my agency owner. I am just curious: does anyone else feel like SEO work has become slightly less important in the grand scheme?