Google’s AI Overviews Hit Sour Note With Rolling Stone

A magazine publisher is accusing Google’s AI summaries of using its work without consent.

Penske Media, which owns Rolling Stone, Billboard and Variety, has sued the tech giant in federal court in Washington, D.C., saying that its artificial intelligence (AI) search summaries are reducing its web traffic, Reuters reported Saturday (Sept. 13).

The report noted that the suit is the first time a major American publisher has sued Google over the AI-generated summaries that have come to top its search results.

In this case, Penske is accusing Google of only including publishers’ websites in search results if it can also use their articles in AI summaries. Absent this leverage, Google would be forced to pay media companies to republish their work or use it to train its AI systems, Reuters added, citing the lawsuit.

The suit added that Google was able to dictate these terms due to its dominant position in the online search market, citing a court ruling last year that found the company owned nearly 90% of that market.

“We have a responsibility to proactively fight for the future of digital media and preserve its integrity — all of which is threatened by Google’s current actions,” Penske said.

Reached for comments by PYMNTS, a Google spokesperson said that AI Overviews offer a better user experience and direct traffic to an array of sites, and that the company will defend itself against what it called “meritless” claims.

Google introduced AI Overviews in May 2024, saying they would frequently show up at the top of search results, often replacing traditional website links.

PYMNTS reported at the time that this change aimed to offer users speedier access to information but could alter how businesses think about search engine optimization (SEO) and online advertising.

The Penske lawsuit is one of several pieces of litigation involving news publishers, writers and media companies who accuse the AI sector of improper use of their material.

Last week, Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle a high-profile copyright violation lawsuit in a case involving a group of authors who accused the startup of illegally accessing their books.

This latest suit comes two months after the Independent Publishers Alliance filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commission, claiming that Google’s AI Overviews are an abuse of the company’s online search market power.

The alliance argues that by placing the summaries at the top of search results, Google disadvantages the publishers’ original content.

“New AI experiences in Search enable people to ask even more questions, which creates new opportunities for content and businesses to be discovered,” a Google spokesperson said in response to the complaint.