Germany's media regulator, the Commission for Licensing and Supervision (ZAK), said on Tuesday that Google's AI Overviews and Perplexity AI are subject to the country's media laws, stepping up scrutiny of AI-generated content after a German court found Google liable for inaccurate information produced by the feature. ZAK, representing Germany's 14 state media authorities, said AI-generated news summaries and chatbot responses constitute content created by the providers themselves rather than merely displaying third-party material. In a separate case, a court in Munich held that Google could be directly liable for allegedly false statements generated by its AI Overview feature, according to German newspaper publishers' association BDZV. "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. The regulator said the liability exemption under the European Union's Digital Services Act did not apply. It argued that Google's AI Overviews are displayed prominently within search results, unfairly disadvantaging third-party media content, and that chatbots like Perplexity influence the discoverability of news content, potentially qualifying as media intermediaries. Google said it planned to appeal the decision, which a spokesperson said "fails to recognise how people's preferences when searching for information and the information ecosystem are changing." Perplexity declined to comment but said it complies with the EU's privacy rules and holds SOC 2 Type II security and privacy certification.