The only time it ever seems like magic is when you don't really care about the problem or how it gets "solved" and are willing to ignore all the little things it got wrong.
Generative AI is neither magic, nor does it really solve any problems. The illusion of productivity is all in your head.
For my uses, my rule is "long to research, but easy to verify". I only ask for things I can quickly determine if they're right or not, I just don't want to spend half an hour googling and sorting though the data.
For most of my queries there's an acceptable margin of error, which is generally unavoidable AI or not. Google isn't guaranteed to return everything you might want either.
Generative AI is neither magic, nor does it really solve any problems. The illusion of productivity is all in your head.