They do not specify the use-case, but if you are charitable, its probably the fallback mode if the self-driving stack cannot handle the situation. Waymo has the same thing as well, so not exactly unexpected.
What remote monitors imply depends: In China, you might be focusing on collecting data from rides that may need a lot of remote monitoring. Or, faking it until you make it. If you are Google and you like headcount minimalism, it shows you have confidence you can spend $5B on expanding AV service without blowing out you headcount. Tesla also likes to keep headcount low. So they think they can catch up to Waymo very quickly.