Germany’s joint media regulator has ruled for the first time that AI-generated search summaries count as their provider’s own editorial content — not neutral, protected search results — clearing the way to enforce German press law against Google and Perplexity.
The Commission for Licensing and Supervision (ZAK), the body representing Germany’s 14 state media authorities, issued formal orders on July 14 against Google’s AI Overviews and Perplexity’s AI-powered search service. ZAK chair Thorsten Schmiege said the commission would now “consistently apply German media law” to AI search engines and chatbots, arguing they act as content providers rather than passive intermediaries shielded by the EU’s Digital Services Act.
What Google and Perplexity are accused of
According to ZAK, Google’s AI Overviews are displayed so prominently above conventional search results that the underlying list of source links effectively disappears from view — a practice the regulator called impermissible discrimination against journalistic outlets competing for visibility. Perplexity was cited for folding third-party content into its answers as source lists without meeting the transparency obligations that apply to services shaping how outside content gets seen, and for lacking a designated German representative.
The orders, backed by a legal opinion commissioned from two German media-law professors, apply obligations under the Interstate Media Treaty that were originally written for media intermediaries such as search engines and app stores. Both companies can challenge the rulings in court.
Part of a broader legal squeeze
The decision follows a Munich regional court ruling in May that held Google directly liable for false claims inside an AI Overview, on the grounds that the summaries are “independent, new, and substantive statements” rather than indexed excerpts. Google has said only that it is “carefully reviewing” that ruling. German publisher groups, who have long complained that AI summaries divert readers away from their own sites, welcomed the ZAK decision as a possible template for other regulators — pressure that is already reshaping how sites try to get cited inside AI search answers instead of relying on traditional link clicks.
Germany is not alone in scrutinizing how AI reshapes the web’s information flow: the ruling sits alongside a broader wave of AI-search regulation efforts across Europe, as authorities test how far existing media and competition law reaches into AI products built on top of the open web.