German regulator strips Google AI search of liability shield

Germany’s media regulator has ruled that Google’s AI Overviews and Perplexity AI are subject to the country’s strict media laws, rejecting the argument that AI-generated summaries merely display third-party material. The Commission for Licensing and Supervision (ZAK) said on Tuesday that such tools constitute content created by the providers themselves.

The decision strips these platforms of a key liability shield under the European Union’s Digital Services Act. The DSA generally protects platforms from responsibility for illegal user-generated content, but ZAK determined this exemption does not apply to AI-generated search summaries. "AI search engines and chatbots are content providers, and we will consistently apply German media law to them from now on," ZAK Chairman Thorsten Schmiege said in a statement.

The regulatory stance follows a separate ruling by a Munich court, which held Google directly liable for allegedly false statements generated by its AI Overview feature. According to the German newspaper publishers' association BDZV, the court agreed that AI-produced summaries amount to the company's own content rather than a neutral display of external information.

For tech companies and investors, the rulings signal a material increase in legal and compliance costs for AI search products in Europe's largest economy. Holding platforms directly liable for AI inaccuracies could force companies to implement expensive human oversight or heavily restrict the rollout of generative AI features to avoid lawsuits.

The regulatory scrutiny also threatens the core business model of AI search engines. ZAK argued that AI summaries are displayed prominently within search results, pushing traditional lists of links lower. This dynamic unfairly disadvantages third-party media content and disrupts the traffic pipelines that publishers rely on for revenue.

Furthermore, the regulator warned that chatbots like Perplexity influence the discoverability of news by selecting which sources and links appear alongside AI answers. Under this framework, AI search services could qualify as media intermediaries, subjecting them to stringent rules designed to safeguard media plurality.

Google plans to appeal the decision. A company spokesperson said the ruling "fails to recognise how people's preferences when searching for information and the information ecosystem are changing." The spokesperson added that "Our AI-powered summaries enhance the search experience in Germany - they help users discover new content and ask follow-up questions,"

Perplexity declined to comment specifically on the ZAK decision. However, the AI search company highlighted its compliance with the EU's GDPR privacy rules and noted it holds SOC 2 Type II security and privacy certification. These compliance credentials will likely face new tests if the company is formally regulated as a media intermediary.