Google’s AI Search Mixed Up a Doctor with a Criminal. German Courts Say Google Is Responsible.

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The short version: Google’s AI search told people that a respected German doctor had harassed his secretary, been fired, and been convicted in court. None of it was true. The AI had mixed him up with a different man. When Google refused to take it down, the doctor went to court, and on September 24, 2026, a court in Aachen, Germany, ordered Google to stop. It’s the second German court this year to say the same thing: when Google’s AI writes something, Google is responsible for it. The tech site The Decoder pulled the story together on Sunday, October 18. Here’s what happened, in plain English, and what it means for the AI answers you see every day.

First, what are AI Overviews and AI Mode?

When you search on Google these days, you often get a short AI-written answer at the top of the page, before the regular list of links. Google calls that an AI Overview. AI Mode is a newer option that works more like a chatbot: you ask a question and it writes you a longer answer, pulling from lots of websites at once.

It’s handy. But the AI doesn’t copy one website word for word. It reads several, mixes the pieces together, and writes something brand new. Most of the time that works fine. Sometimes it stitches the wrong pieces together, like a friend who mixes up two people with the same haircut and tells a very confident story about the wrong one.

What happened to the doctor

The doctor had worked as a chief physician and professor at a German hospital from 2010 until late June 2026. On August 28, a colleague warned him about something strange. When people searched his name along with words like “suspension,” Google’s AI Mode said he had pushed himself on his secretary during a work trip and tried to kiss her, that he had been suspended and fired, that a court had given him a suspended sentence for sexual assault, and that he had walked away with a six-figure payout.

Every bit of it was false. According to the German legal news site beck-aktuell, there was never a criminal complaint against him, no trial, and no conviction. The AI had apparently taken a real case involving a different former senior employee at the same hospital and pinned it on him. Even the news articles Google linked as its sources never named him.

• He asked Google to fix it. In late August he emailed Google, explained the mix-up, and asked for the answers to be removed.
• Google said no. In mid-September, Google replied that it had reviewed the complaint and would not take any action. A formal letter from his lawyers the same day didn’t change anything, and the false answers stayed up.
• The court stepped in. On September 24, the Aachen Regional Court banned Google from spreading the three false versions of the story. Because the claims could badly hurt his career, the court acted as an emergency and didn’t wait to hear Google’s side first.
• The price of ignoring it: If Google breaks the order, it faces a fine of up to 250,000 euros each time.

This is a temporary emergency order, not a final ruling. Google can still challenge it.

This isn’t the first time

Back in late May 2026, a court in Munich ruled in a similar case. There, Google’s AI had falsely linked two Munich publishers to fraud schemes. The Munich judges said Google’s AI Overviews aren’t just a list of other people’s websites. They’re Google’s own statements, so Google has to answer for them.

Google appealed that ruling, but according to The Decoder, the case quietly ended in a settlement before a higher court could weigh in. Nobody has said whether money changed hands. Now the Aachen court has used the very same reasoning, which suggests German courts are starting to agree on how to handle this.

Why the courts said Google is responsible

A search engine is usually seen as a go-between: it points you to what other people wrote. That’s a big reason search engines usually aren’t blamed for what’s on other websites.

The German courts see AI answers differently. The Munich court said the AI makes “independent, new” statements by combining information from different websites. In other words, the AI isn’t pointing you to someone else’s words. It’s writing its own. And the Aachen judges said Google could have checked. They even noted that if Google had shown its own AI the doctor’s complaint, the AI would likely have figured out the claims were wrong.

The doctor’s lawyer, Carsten Brennecke, put it bluntly (translated from German): “Whoever lets an AI make claims about people is liable for them. Google can’t hide behind an algorithm.”

Does this affect people outside Germany?

Not directly. These are German court decisions, and they only apply in Germany. Laws in other countries, including the United States, are different, and it isn’t clear yet how courts elsewhere will handle mistakes made by AI search.

But the lesson travels well: AI search answers can sound completely sure of themselves and still be flat wrong, especially about real people. Google says so itself. Its own help page warns that AI Overviews “can and will make mistakes.”

Try this next

Want a second opinion you can trust a little more? Here’s how to ask a free AI chatbot whether a text is a scam, and the right way to double-check what it tells you. And if you use Google’s Gemini chatbot, here’s what its “Auto” setting means for free users.

Common questions

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Sources

• The Decoder: “Two German courts now hold Google liable for what its AI overviews say” (October 18, 2026)
• beck-aktuell: “Google muss KI-Halluzination löschen” (in German, October 8, 2026)
• Google Search Help: “AI Overviews in Google Search”
• Google Legal Help: “Report Content On Google”