Exactly! I did the same thing the last few years. Just ask ChatGPT (basically any AI chat), it will search and give you the answer you're looking for without you having to open the pages one by one, like on the SERP. AI is already changing human search behavior, I think.

I just learned about Kagi from the comments here. The first time I saw this kind of paid search engine was Waterfox Search when browsing with the Waterfox browser, but I still go with DuckDuckGo most of the time for a privacy-first search engine. Did you try Kagi? What's so special about it that makes you willing to pay for the service?