This is a domain research domain that contain statistic methods and knowledge modeling among other. That’s not new, but the fact that this is marketed like that everywhere is new
AI is really not a specific term. You may refer as global AI, and I suspect that’s what you refer to when you say AI?
There is a difference being able to drop down in C and using exclusively C.
One of the main advantage of python is being to quickly write code, and using C-based library / part of code written in C (or fortran, or rust for what it matters) when needed.
“just write C” may lack a bit of nuance.