The promised ten-year life is better than the e.g. 4-year life you can get out of a GPS/LTE NB-IOT with lithium primary cell and deep sleep, and with fewer compromises around tesponsiveness to commands (primary-battery asset trackers are usually waking up like once every 6 hours). Still, standalone asset trackers have a number of features that make them more suitable for theft scenarios than airtags, not least of which is the absence of the anti-stalking feature of airtags which means they're never really a concealable option.
The major difference left is consumer-friendliness... Most asset trackers are provided by vendors with pretty hefty ongoing fees, and more oriented towards commercial customers like fleet operators and construction. Big difference in ease of purchase and use. It does make you wonder about the market for a really consumer-friendly solution, though.