Because decisionmakers literally think that potential customers who are comparing products side by side look at whether ProductA has a tick in the "AI" column a

Because decisionmakers literally think that potential customers who are comparing products side by side look at whether ProductA has a tick in the "AI" column and ProductB doesn't, so A must be better. I think it's as simple as that. They cater to the feature-matrix thing, they get a win for their yearly review because they "implemented AI". A good search makes users love your product. But that doesn't show up in a feature matrix, nor is it a great review bullet point to have "improved the search somewhat".