Duckduckgo has really expanded their offerings, including AI search results. This seems expensive. It makes me suspicious that it could be a honeypot or something. Where do they get their money?
They hold a 0.74% share of the global search engine market (1.75% in the US), so even if they earn revenue solely through advertising or affiliate income, Duckduckgo will produce substantial $$$.
It seems highly unlikely that the ads from a single search would cover the tokens for the AI summarization of that search.