This may be a helpful graphic when deciding on a search engine

https://www.searchenginemap.com/

You get a list of results that looks a bit like Google without the AI answer up top and without any ads. There is a “quick answer” button you can click towards the top of the results that WILL generate an AI response but it isn’t visible by default

I signed up for 3 free months of Kagi recently. I don’t think I do enough searching to justify paying for a search engine but I have been pleased with search results for what I asked and nothing more.