Look, tech companies lie all the time to make their bad decisions sound less bad. Simple example: almost every "AI made us more efficient" announcement is really just a company making (unpopular) layoffs, but trying to brand them as being part of an "efficiency effort".
I'd bet $100 this company just wants to go closed source for business reasons, and (just like with the layoffs masquerading as "AI efficiency") AI is being used as the scapegoat.