I have been working on a basic concept for this implementation. If I get you right. you want to get use of Navigation Systems for AI but at the same time drive your characters with root-motion animations instead of using Character Movement for them;
the Idea is simple, though it’s a concept Idea but it’s applicable to many methods if you are gonna evolve it according to your AI desire. (whether you want him to Chase, or Randomly Wander, or Stop… etc.) and it’s all using root-motion animations for them.
My Idea was to make an AI chase Batman Character (which is my main controlled character) while AI use root-motion based movement to Move or Stop accordingly.
I made this simple blueprint, and my AI Character follows my Main Character without any intervention of CharacterMovement, only animation root-motion is driving my AI Characters 
as you can see, I have used Find Path to Location Synchronously to get the path point Number 1 which is as shown…
…then I made my AI Character Look At Path Point Number [1] - we only manipulate rotation here not the movement, therefore, we can make our AI move (or jump, punch or sing whatever you like) according to his root-motion animation separately and according to your animation states
now I could have him THINK like an AI but with root-motion movement. means that he find his path to the Main Character with the Navigation System but move according to his root-motion animations. that’s because we only manipulated his rotation and we didn’t code anything to his CharacterMovement. I hope this helps, and this is how I deal with my AI Characters, I never use CharacterMovement method for them.
Try this out, and see the magic
PREREQUISITE NOTE:
- you should make sure you get the path
point number [1] from the array of
Path Points, any other number will
not get the desired result for your
AI. - make sure the Filter Class in the
function is set to
RaycastFilter_UseDefaultArea option
as shown in the first picture. - make sure you have generated your
Navigation Mesh Bounds in the level
or particularly.
message me if you have any questions further.