I suspect if it were to ever emerge from the “internal incubator” Area 120 is described as, it would become a GSuite feature.

> Or does Google not know that how they’re perceived?

I think Google knows that people in certain circles talking nothing but that view. They probably also have real stats on how their experiments are picked up and used, and I suspect they aren't at all what the people who think that the perception you refer to do instead public consciousness would predict.