Google Is Liable for AI-Generated Summaries

In a ruling dated May 28, 2026 (Case No. 26 O 869/26), the Munich I District Court ruled that Google is liable for legal violations in AI-generated summaries that appear at the top of search results under the heading “AI Overview.”

1. Summary of the Decision

1.1 Facts of the Case

Google displays a summary generated by artificial intelligence (AI) above the search results under the heading “AI Overview.” In these summaries, for certain search queries that included, among other things, the word “scam”, it was stated that the plaintiffs—a publishing house and a subsidiary of that publishing house—were “known for dubious business practices” and were “often perceived as a scam”, specifically “in connection with subscription traps”. The summaries went on to mention debt collection claims, problems with digital subscriptions, lack of responsiveness, and the claim that the companies operated under various names to make identification more difficult.

These allegations were untrue. The AI-generated summary included information that did not pertain to the plaintiffs but rather to other companies with which the plaintiffs had no connection whatsoever.

The plaintiffs filed a motion with the District Court of Munich I for a preliminary injunction. The District Court of Munich I granted the motion almost in its entirety (judgment of May 28, 2026, Case No. 26 O 869/26).

1.2 Technical Background

Contrary to what the term “artificial intelligence” suggests, generative AI is not intelligent. Generative AI, which is based on so-called large language models (LLMs), has merely analyzed a vast corpus of texts during training and “memorized” how likely it is that a specific word will be followed by a specific other word in a text. Texts are assembled based on these “learned” probabilities of specific word sequences.

An AI-generated text incorporates text fragments from various sources that are in no way related to one another in terms of content. The result is not checked for factual accuracy. AI-generated texts are therefore generally free of spelling and grammatical errors. However, the content may be factually incorrect—this is referred to as “hallucinations”.

Such a “hallucination” was present in the case decided by the District Court of Munich I.

1.3 Legal Basis

1.3.1 Substantive Legal Basis

False factual claims about a company infringe upon its corporate personality rights. Companies therefore have a right to injunctive relief against anyone who disseminates false factual claims, pursuant to Sections 1004, 823(1) of the German Civil Code (BGB) in conjunction with Article 2(1) and Article 19(3) of the German Basic Law (GG).

Although in the present case the dissemination of the false factual claims was automated by an algorithm that generated and displayed the text, Google must accept responsibility for these AI-generated texts and is therefore liable as a direct interferer for an injunction, according to the Munich I District Court.

1.3.2 Procedural Background

The decision was issued in preliminary injunction proceedings; it is therefore, in any case, only provisional in nature. The decision must be reviewed in regular main proceedings, unless Google acknowledges the decision issued in the preliminary injunction proceedings as a final settlement between the parties, in which case main proceedings are unnecessary.

Google also had one month to appeal the decision to the Higher Regional Court. It is not known whether this was done.

1.4 Decision Under German National Law

The court ruled exclusively under German national law.

1.4.1 EU AI Regulation Not Applicable to Civil Claims

With regard to Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (AI Act), the court ruled that it did not apply to this case because, to the extent that it is already in effect, it only provides for the possibility of filing a complaint with the competent market surveillance authority in addition to—and “without prejudice to”—the legal remedies already provided for under Union law and the national laws of the Member States.

1.4.2 The Digital Services Act Does Not Supersede National Laws

With regard to Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 (Digital Services Act, “DSA”), the court stated that the provisions in Art. 6, 16 et seq. of the DSA do not supersede national legal provisions either, because these provisions merely concern liability exemptions within the scope of the DSA, and furthermore, Article 6(4) of the DSA does not preclude the possibility that a judicial authority under the legal system of a Member State may require the service provider to cease or prevent an infringement.

1.5 Google Is Liable for the AI-Generated Texts as a Direct Infringer

The central issue in the proceedings was whether Google must be held responsible for the texts automatically generated by the AI.

Google had argued in this regard that the AI-generated texts did not constitute “statements” by Google, and that a claim under Sections 1004, 823 et seq. of the German Civil Code (BGB) could not be considered because Google could, at most, be held liable under the principles of indirect liability for interference, and the requirements for such liability had not been met. Google, the company argued, merely operates a search engine that automatically displays third-party data and information in response to search queries. Google is therefore not itself responsible for the data processing and does not adopt the third-party information as its own, even in the “AI Overview.” Accordingly, Google is liable only after becoming aware of a manifest legal violation.

These arguments did not convince the court. It ruled that Google is liable for the infringements as a direct infringer. In its reasoning, the court explained that the “AI Overview” is not merely a display of search results, but rather content created by Google itself and attributable to it. The fact that the term “scam” was suggested via the so-called auto-complete function as soon as one of the plaintiffs’ company names was entered likely contributed to this conclusion. Ultimately, however, the following factors were decisive:

• In response to search queries, the results are not merely displayed as links or short previews (snippets); rather, the results of the search query are summarized and evaluated in Google’s own words and according to its own structure. This presentation begins with an introductory affirmation of the query, for example with the wording “Yes, there are indications of scams and unscrupulous practices […],” and, linguistically speaking, already goes beyond the mere presentation of links.
• The independent thematic structuring of the response—into an introductory summary, followed by a compilation of the “characteristics of the suspected scam”, and then a recommendation for action (“What you can do”)—was not present at all in the cited results from third-party sites. This demonstrates that the AI independently processes the search results in terms of content. In this way, Google creates independent statements that go beyond the individual search results, which are then displayed via links later on.
• Since Google introduced the AI itself and offers it to users, it must also take responsibility for its results. After all, only Google itself has influence over the AI’s output and the algorithms it uses.
• Above all, the “AI Overview” contains statements that do not appear in the search results at all. For example, the top result in the search results was an article from a law firm titled “Beware of …”, which made no reference whatsoever to the plaintiffs. Therefore, this constitutes a statement of its own, for which Google, as the provider, must be held accountable.

1.6 Case Law of the Federal Court of Justice on the Liability and Duty of Care of Search Engine Operators for Violations of Personal Rights

The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) had already ruled in 2018 and 2013 on the search engine operator’s duty to review and liability for violations of personal rights.

1.6.1 Links in Search Results to Third-Party Websites

In 2018, the BGH ruled that a search engine operator—again, the case involved Google—is only a direct contributor to the infringement if the search results pages consist of its own content or third-party content that it adopts as its own by outwardly and recognizably assuming responsibility for the content of published material; the mere inclusion of a link in the search results is not sufficient to constitute such adoption (BGH, judgment of February 27, 2018, Case No. VI ZR 489/16). The operator of a search engine generally has no obligation to verify the legality of the content it finds. Only when the search engine operator becomes aware, through a specific report, of an obvious infringement that is clearly recognizable at first glance—such as child pornography—does it incur duties of conduct, and a breach of these duties then triggers liability as an indirect infringer.

According to the Munich I District Court, this Federal Court of Justice (BGH) precedent—which pertains to search results—does not apply to the “AI Overview” because it does not merely link to third-party websites but rather presents independent, new statements of fact based on an analysis and synthesis of content from various third-party websites. Unlike the review of content linked in search results—which would be practically impossible to carry out and would seriously call into question the existence of search engines as a business model—the Munich I District Court holds that a review of the AI’s statements is entirely possible, at least by comparing the underlying third-party websites with the AI’s own statements based on them.

1.6.2 “Autocomplete” Function

Similarly, the District Court of Munich I also rejected the application of the Federal Court of Justice’s case law regarding Google’s so-called “autocomplete” function. In 2013, the Federal Court of Justice had ruled that Google is liable for the display of terms infringing on personality rights in the “autocomplete” function when the name of the affected person is entered only if it fails to fulfill reasonable duties of scrutiny, and that such liability arises only upon becoming aware of the infringement of personality rights (BGH, judgment of May 14, 2013 Case No. VI ZR 269/12).

According to the Munich I District Court, the “AI Overview” goes far beyond the display of term associations formed from users’ search data, because it involves an independently generated statement that, based on the weighting of search results and an evaluation of the content, formulates its own answer (not a question) and presents it to the user.

1.7 Users’ Ability to Verify Is Irrelevant

In the opinion of the Munich I District Court, the fact that users can use the links to verify whether the content of the third-party sites actually corresponds to the “AI Overview” does not relieve the provider of liability for the statement, because the “AI Overview” is comprehensible in and of itself, constitutes a complete statement with independently understandable content, and contains no indication of alternative interpretations or, indeed, any unreliability in its content. Therefore, users generally have no reason to additionally verify the displayed answer to the search query.

1.7 Users’ Ability to Verify Is Irrelevant

In the opinion of the Munich I District Court, the fact that users can use the links to verify whether the content of the third-party sites actually corresponds to the “AI Overview” does not relieve the provider of liability for the statement, because the “AI Overview” is comprehensible in and of itself, constitutes a complete statement with independently understandable content, and contains no indication of alternative interpretations or, indeed, any unreliability in its content. Therefore, users generally have no reason to additionally verify the displayed answer to the search query.

1.8 Functionality of the Search Engine Not Impaired

While the Federal Court of Justice had cited the functionality of the search engine as grounds for denying a duty to verify without cause in the case of links in search results, the District Court of Munich I also rejected this line of reasoning because the “AI Overview” merely offers an additional feature, without which the search engine can still be used, and without which users are certainly still able to find results in the “flood of data” .

2. Opinion

The result seems surprising: The liability exemption in the form of a notice-and-take-down procedure, which German case law has thus far recognized in cases of third-party infringements not only in favor of search engine operators but also in favor of hosting providers (BGH, judgment of October 25, 2011, Case No. VI ZR 93/10), is not supposed to apply if the “third party” is an AI.

However, the AI is deployed by Google, and its results are made available to Google users. The AI is therefore not a third party but falls within Google’s sphere of responsibility. As the court correctly notes, the search engine would function and could be used even without the “AI Overview.” After all, Google has operated the search engine extremely successfully for more than two decades without the “AI Overview.”

This raises the question of how Google will respond to the decision. Completely abandoning the “AI Overview” will certainly not be the solution. Google invests billions in AI development. As the ruling indicates, after receiving the cease-and-desist letter, entering the same search terms displayed different summaries that no longer contained the disputed statements. Apparently, Google was able to take measures to ensure that the disputed statements were no longer displayed.

The court’s rejection of the “notice-and-take-down” procedure raises the question of how Google should prevent inaccurate statements made by AI in the future without prior warning or other notification of the legal violation. One (largely) legally sound option would be to program the AI to refrain from making any negative statements about companies and individuals. However, this would result in users being deprived of important information—for example, if they receive a suspicious email and ask Google whether it is a phishing email. An AI that generally omits any mention of problems of any kind in order to avoid legal violations is completely useless. This is because people typically consult an AI precisely in situations where they are facing a problem or need to make a decision and require information to resolve it—information that they would be unable to find, or would find only with great difficulty, without the AI.

In this context, the court’s reasoning is interesting: it held that the “AI Overview” contains no indication of alternative interpretations or even inaccuracies in the content, and that users therefore generally have no reason to further verify the displayed response to their search query. An initial measure that could be implemented quickly would therefore be to include a prominent disclaimer at the beginning of the AI-generated summary.

Currently, the “AI Overview” includes a note at the end in gray text that is smaller than the main text, which reads as follows: “AI responses may include mistakes. Learn more” The text “Learn more” is linked to a page with information about the “AI Overview.” For search queries on legal topics, the notice additionally includes the sentence “For legal advice, consult a professional.”. For search queries on medical topics, the sentences “This is for informational purposes only. For medical advice or diagnosis, consult a professional.” are added.

It is not clear from the judgment of the Munich I District Court whether these notices were already in place at the time of the infringement. In any case, these notices are a step in the right direction; however, it is doubtful whether they are sufficient—particularly given their placement at the end of the overview and their inconspicuous design—to trigger the notice-and-take-down procedure.

AI developers will have to devote greater attention to the issue of preventing legal infringements. This applies in particular to cases of “imposed AI”, in which the user does not consciously intend to use an AI (such as Gemini, ChatGPT, or Copilot) but rather a traditional search engine that has existed for over 25 years, and is therefore potentially less aware of the risk of misinformation than an experienced AI user who consciously uses an AI.