Two weeks ago, the Landgericht München I ruled that Google’s AI Overviews constitute Google’s own content. The decision classifies Google as “unmittelbarer Störer,” a direct infringer, and strips away the liability shield that protects traditional search engines from third-party content claims. Google can no longer argue it simply aggregates what others wrote. This could be a big deal.
In the first four months of 2026, 68 percent of Google searches ended without a click. AI Overviews now run on more than 20 percent of searches and cut clicks by nearly 60 percent when they appear.
Not every jurisdiction sees it this way, however. In Walters v. OpenAI (Georgia, 2025), a defamation claim was dismissed after the court found that no reasonable person would treat a chatbot response as fact. Google’s legal team likely expected the same logic to prevail in Munich. It did not.
It is worth noting that an appeal remains open, but it signals that at least some courts may treat AI-generated summaries differently than search results going forward.