It's unclear whether this is a monetized feature. I can't get the feature to trigger to check if there's e.g. any affiliate codes. (Maybe it's US-only feature?). But my guess would be that at least to start with it is not monetized in any way.

As far as I can see, they surely are. The front page country-specific bookmarks in the Edge browser are with affiliate links, such as Booking.com, eBay, etc., and then after a few local suggestions.

Was surprised to see how bad the UX was when trying Edge on the Mac. They claim to be super privacy-focused, yet anyways I need to accept a cookie banner with many data partners to get access to the settings button.

Sent them bunch of feedback.