I’m aware of what SOTA means, but how does that apply to a review? How do we or the authors assess that it is in fact the state of the art (best) without an obj

I’m aware of what SOTA means, but how does that apply to a review? How do we or the authors assess that it is in fact the state of the art (best) without an objective measure? If they mean it’s the most current, every review is state of the art at time of publication by definition.