The American media holding Penske Media Corporation, owner of Rolling Stone, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety and Billboard, has filed a federal lawsuit against Google. At the center of the claim is the AI Overviews feature, which generates short AI-powered answers at the top of search results, thereby reducing clicks to the original source websites. Penske argues that this practice is already damaging advertising and affiliate revenues and is asking the court to recognize the use of journalistic materials without permission as unlawful. The lawsuit was filed in the District of Columbia and marks the first major case in the U.S. specifically against AI Overviews.
The publisher describes a vicious circle: if they allow indexing and citation, the AI summaries capture part of the demand directly on the search results page and lower traffic. If they restrict bots’ access, their visibility in search disappears. According to Penske, affiliate revenues in 2025 dropped by more than a third, which the company directly links to the decline of referral traffic from Google. Similar complaints have already been raised by other media groups in the U.S. and Europe.
Google, for its part, calls the lawsuit baseless. The company insists that AI Overviews improve the user experience while continuing to drive billions of clicks to publishers. Google’s representatives claim that the feature helps readers find information more quickly without depriving websites of meaningful traffic.
Independent research supports the publishers’ concerns. Pew Research found that when AI summaries appear, users click on links roughly half as often as they do without them: about eight percent of visits compared to fifteen percent. While not definitive proof, this data is an important context for understanding AI Overviews’ impact on website traffic. Commercial analysis by Semrush also showed that the share of search queries triggering AI summaries grew from 6.5% in January 2025 to 13% in March, especially in topics such as science, health and society.
SEO companies report that the average click-through rate has dropped to around 30% in areas where AI Overviews are active, though methodologies vary. Against this backdrop, publishers argue that the online media business model is under threat: fewer clicks mean fewer page views, which in turn means lower advertising revenues.
The Penske lawsuit may become a precedent for the entire industry. The key legal question is whether AI Overviews fall under fair quotation and transformative use of content without licensing, or whether they constitute an infringement of publishers’ rights. At the same time, the industry is watching for possible regulatory steps and compensation models for the use of content in AI-generated answers. The trial in Washington will determine not only the future of Google’s feature but also the broader relationship between media companies and technology giants.
