Google is now legally responsible for its own AI answers
A German court dropped a landmark ruling on AI liability this week, Apple finally rebuilt Siri for the AI era, and Google quietly handed website owners a say in whether their content appears in AI answers. Here are your five.
1. A German court just ruled Google owns its AI answers, even when they're wrong
A regional court in Munich has ruled that Google is directly liable for false claims made by its AI Overviews, after two Munich-based publishers were wrongly connected to scams and fraud. The court rejected Google's argument that users should fact-check AI answers themselves, and ruled that the protections which have historically shielded search engines from liability don't apply to AI Overviews - Google's AI content is Google's content, full stop. The Decoder
2. Apple just rebuilt Siri from scratch, and it's running on Google Gemini
Apple used WWDC to unveil Siri AI, a ground-up rebuild of its long-struggling voice assistant, powered by the next generation of Apple Intelligence with Google Gemini under the hood. The new Siri can hold real back-and-forth conversations, pull context from emails, messages and photos, and take actions across apps - another sign voice and conversational AI are getting significantly smarter. Search Engine Roundtable
3. ChatGPT didn't kill Google Search
A year ago the conventional wisdom was that AI assistants would eat into Google's search dominance. That hasn't happened: Google's search queries hit an all-time high last quarter, driven by AI features rather than despite them, and the feared hit to ad revenue hasn't materialised either - AI Overviews now has over 2.5 billion monthly users and AI Mode has cleared one billion. Sherwood News
4. Claude is the fastest-growing AI traffic source right now
Claude grew referral traffic by nearly 4x between January and April 2026, making it the fastest-growing AI platform in the channel by a wide margin. It still accounts for just 1.4% of AI-referred traffic against ChatGPT's 78%+, but the traffic it sends is notable: users click through with higher intent, spend longer on page and convert better on B2B and professional content. Search Engine Journal
5. Google gave website owners an opt-out toggle for AI search
Google Search Console now has a toggle letting website owners choose whether their content appears in AI Overviews, AI Mode and AI Overviews in Discover - without affecting regular rankings or the Discover feed. It's rolling out to a subset of UK sites first, driven by a requirement from the UK's Competition and Markets Authority, alongside a new Generative AI performance report. Google blog
Small business shout-out
This week's shout-out goes to Nkuku, a homeware and lifestyle brand based in Devon, UK, working with artisan communities across India, Africa and Southeast Asia to create homewares, furniture and gifts from sustainable, natural materials. Know a small business we should feature? Reply and let us know.
