[2022] Goldclaw book hotfixed back in the game.

I like to fix things that annoy me. I was also looking into 'why do people think pet AI is bad', and it turns out that when you click buttons that look clickable and nothing happens, it feels broken. Surprise!
It's a start.

That's not AI- technically this isn't the pet, but rather how you're moved between disconnected platforms in SO, but I understand what you're asking. In that specific case, I find Return to Me works. You don't need to spam it, just use it once, and in a moment the mech will teleport to you.
This is how Ranger pets work in this case as well- in Shattered Observatory's Skorvald fight islands, you're still too close to it to trigger an automatic teleport for it to catch up to you, but when you click Return to Me the pet will check to see if it has pathing to you, and since it doesn't, will then trigger a teleport to you.

Still, that's not great. I'm making a note to look into putting a special case in here. Ideally, when you get tossed between landmasses from the swirly vortexes in Shattered Observatory, your pet would stow, and then unstow on the other end. (Like Ziplines in Cantha do).

I've made a note to investigate. I can't promise changes any time soon, but I'll poke at it in my '10% time' and see if I can get some improvements here into a future patch.