Same here. I'm using noai.duckduckgo.com as the default address and it's working great for me, should you ever decide to return. Some slop articles get through but not many and now I get no AI images at all as far as I can tell. I also have the huge AI blocklist going so I couldn't tell you which is helping more, but it never stopped the AI images and noai.duckduckgo.com absolutely does.

Some AI pics truly creep me out; it's that uncanny valley thing. For me a hint of it is somehow even worse than having an image that is obviously, overtly AI. It is such a relief to open an image search and not see a bunch of unnatural shite that only puts the hair on the back of my neck up.