And the changes actually impact productivity for those who have muscle memory; it now takes two swipes up from the home screen to get to your list of all apps. They already had one line on the all apps page dedicated to a list of apps they're predicting you'll want. Now they have a second line on that screen dedicated to actions they think you'll want to take.
I hate this change. Of course you can shove more icons on your home screen, but now we're back to iOS where you just puke everything on home with no automatic organization on the first screens you see when you unlock. Its not productive. I already disliked Android's method of searching apps; on iOS, you can pull down, type the first few letters of an app, and its there. On Android, you click the search button, start typing, and it feels like you get lucky if an app appears there, or if it gives you google search results. Its infuriating.
Oh, and the kicker: If your main google account is on G-Suite, its a complete shot in the dark which features are available and which aren't. On my Pixel 2, the default clock+upcoming events widget simply didn't work for the longest time, then one day it just started working with no G-Suite configuration changes.
I really dislike Google's push toward making hardware and services that aren't designed to be tools. I like tools. A tool is simple, having easy to predict input and output, with the ultimate goal of empowering humanity. There are applications of AI that are so powerful and self-contained that it makes sense to deploy it, but then you get the (admittedly really cool) Duplex stuff and its like they aren't even considering the ramifications on both the user and the business if it doesn't work.