Rolling Stone owner sues Google over AI summaries

Penske Media, the owner of Rolling Stone, Billboard and Variety, filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington, DC, alleging that Google’s use of Artificial Intelligence-generated summaries unlawfully leverages publishers’ journalism. The complaint, filed on Friday, challenges the feature Google calls AI Overviews, which appear atop search results. Penske says the company is the first major United States publisher to sue Google over those summaries.

In its filing Penske argues Google conditions inclusion in search results on allowing publishers’ content to be repurposed in summaries, and that the company uses its roughly 90 percent United States search market share to extract that content. Penske said about 20 percent of searches that would link to its sites now display Artificial Intelligence Overviews, and it attributes a roughly one third decline in affiliate revenue since 2024 in part to that change. The publisher also contends that, absent Google’s practice, publishers would be paid for republishing or for rights to use material to train models.

Google rejected the claims in statements cited by the article, saying Artificial Intelligence Overviews improve the search experience and send traffic to more sites. The lawsuit arrives amid broader industry concerns that Artificial Intelligence features in search and other products are eroding advertising and subscription revenue for publishers. The case frames the dispute as both a commercial grievance over lost revenue and a legal test of how search platforms may use news publishers’ content when generating automated summaries.