Automaton recognizing ambiguously accepted words of another automaton
Construct an NFA which will simulate (nodeterministically) two runs of the original NFA on the input. The NFA also remembers one bit – whether the two runs have diverged so far or not. If the bit is off and the NFA chooses two different transitions, then you turn it on. The NFA accepts if both runs accept and the bit is on.

If the original NFA has $k$ states, then the new NFA will have $2k^2$ states. You can convert it to a DFA with $4^{k^2}$ states.

We can reduce the number of states in the corresponding DFA by performing the powerset construction directly. At each step, we will remember, for each step, whether (i) it is impossible to be at that state, (ii) it is possible to be at that state, but there is a unique such run, (iii) it is possible to be at the state, and there are at least two such runs. A state is accepting if there is an accepting states of type (iii), or at least two accepting states of type (ii). This construction uses only $3^k$ states, and so matches your hint.