AI is becoming part of the buying process.
What happens when it gets your business wrong? 

Susanna Kelland, Author

Digital Solutions Strategist & Account Manager | SMB Growth Partner | Google Certified | Digital Marketing Solutions for Local SMB Success (Residential & Commercial) | Digital Marketing for the Developing AI Era

June 11, 2026

Convincing AI overviews and confidently informative recommendations are being handed to your potential customers by AI search engines, and those recommendations have financial consequences. 

💲Incorrect AI citations and recommendations can have negative financial consequences for a business.💲

The legal ramifications of AI providing information about businesses to potential customers are beginning to surface. As AI increasingly influences customer decisions, businesses are questioning whether those AI-generated answers and recommendations are accurate, fair, and as helpful as Google and other AI search engines claim them to be. Businesses can lose revenue, leads, customers, or market share because of those recommendations. 

Does Google have legal AI responsibility? Germany just said "yes". The decision was officially issued on May 28, 2026, though it only became public knowledge and hit global news cycles yesterday, June 10, 2026. **

So, Big News: Google was found to be legally responsible for certain statements generated in its AI Overview, reasoning that Google created and published the content rather than merely linking to third-party sources.

How does this legal decision affect us?  It opens the door for more questions:

• Is AI helping customers find my business, or steering them elsewhere?

• How much trust should customers place in AI-generated recommendations?

• What happens when an AI answer is wrong and someone loses money?

Here's why we need more discussion around why we should be mindfully critical and cautious about AI answers to queries - including business owners. We do need to understand how AI works, and be aware of what we can do to make our companies more AI-visible and cited correctly in answers to queries. Online AI visibility is affecting every business, from the one-person SMB to National Enterprise brands. I write a short summary about  "Content for AI Citations"  here.

AI is affecting business profits and losses. It is changing how they win customers online.

The influence on customer decisions has moved from Google providing a list of choices (lists of company websites to browse), to Google and other AI search engines giving advice on how to choose, summarizing and providing decision-making recommendations to potential customers.

Helpful? Sure! But AI actively influences buying decisions. It influences where customers spend money.  AI can negatively affect the bottom line when businesses ignore preparing for it, or design websites and content without a clear understanding of how it works. 

To be fair, businesses have always needed to understand digital marketing strategies to succeed online. What has changed is that AI is no longer simply directing customers to information, it is increasingly interpreting that information and influencing decisions on their behalf. 

Companies now are being challenged to understand what AI Search engines appear to need from them  to get cited. It's not enough anymore to just put your website out there and hope customers learn enough about you to choose you. It never was that simple, of course, but now it's even more significantly challenging for everyone.

Whether you're a large company or a small business, the way to look at it is to pay attention to and take care of your "brand health".  What do potential customers find out about you? What do they think of you? What makes them have enough trust in you to buy? 

AI has difficulty citing from older websites which were built for human visitors and traditional search engines, not for today's AI systems that increasingly summarize, compare, and recommend businesses. To be read and cited accurately by AI, the business probably needs to update. Fast. 

The marketing messaging must change format. AI reads it very, very literally. Humans read between the lines. AI reads the lines. 

Modern AI systems rely heavily on entity recognition and trust signals. AI reads businesses far more literally than humans do, which means incomplete information can result in businesses being misunderstood, overlooked, or inaccurately represented 

AI search engines and digital assistants increasingly rely on explicit statements when evaluating and recommending businesses. Information that is implied, assumed, or scattered across multiple sources may be overlooked, resulting in incomplete or inaccurate interpretations.

As customer decision-making shifts toward AI-generated recommendations, companies must ensure their online presence clearly communicates who they serve, what they do, how they deliver value, and which type of customers are the best fit for their products or services. The goal is not simply to be visible online, but to be accurately represented when AI systems summarize, compare, and recommend businesses to potential customers.

AI may reach the wrong business conclusion simply because it failed to disclose, discover, or bring relevant information to the surface.

Businesses can be harmed not only by false or incorrectly presented information, but also by omissions. This is when AI fails to surface important facts, qualifications, experience, or context that would materially influence a customer's decision.

What if AI gets it "wrong"? The company who is not cited and recommended, or worse, who is slandered with false, misleading, incomplete, or omitted information, suffers.

For example:

• Builder A has 50 healthcare projects.

• Builder B has 5 healthcare projects.

• AI mentions neither fact.

• AI recommends Builder B.

The answer may contain no factual error whatsoever.

But the economic outcome could still be substantial.

Businesses need to feed the AI machine.

Training AI is achieved by providing it with information for the answers: company information everywhere on the web, such as product and service information on websites, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), reviews and review responses, anywhere a company is referenced.

Businesses are responsible for providing quality content, AI is responsible for evaluating that content fairly and accurately before generating citations and recommendations. It's a team effort.

However, can or should businesses be solely responsible for providing the exact, comprehensive, and perfect information AI requires to give a correct answer? Inputting everything about their business, about their qualifications, managing their reputation and reviews, clarifying their legitimacy and ranking?

It's a big ask.

Currently it's HEAVILY incumbent upon the businesses to provide PROOF of their validity and value for AI to interpret and source.  Information in AI is provided by the very companies they generate overviews and recommendations for: in summaries, assessments, rankings, comparisons, evaluations, criticisms, recommendations, citations. It tracks back to what businesses publish.

Additionally, information from critics about the business is also visible to AI. What about the opinions of others, competitors, unhappy customers, chat room threads, or just incorrect assumptions by bloggers? All this is considered in AI answers. And not all of it is factual or particularly relevant. For example, very old reviews seem to be considered in assessing a company's now-improved customer service reputation. All these outside "mentions" and reviews need to be aggressively managed. 

AI relying on and citing "Trust Factors" from third party reviews and brand mentions is highly significant in its searches: 

"According to data from NP Digital, 91% to 94% of a brand's AI search visibility is driven by external trust factors, specifically third-party reviews and brand mentions across the web, rather than the content on the business’s own website." - Neil Patel, NP Digital

Poor external trust factor data needs to be addressed, and further information provided to explain the product or service better.  Businesses are still expected to provide enough evidence and authority signals for AI systems to understand who they really are and what they really do. 

AI systems learn from:

• company websites

• detailed case studies

• frequently asked questions (FAQs)

• reviews and review answers

• news articles

• government databases

• forums

• social media

• third-party publications

Businesses have responsibilities for their online information, of course, but certainly AI platforms should have responsibilities for their interpretation and presentation of that information. 

Is AI really the final answer? 

Should it be?

If an AI-generated answer becomes the first information a customer sees, and that answer influences purchasing decisions, who should be responsible when the answer is false, incomplete, omitted, or misleading?

Also, while much attention has been given to AI "hallucinations", answers that are simply wrong and made-up due to lack of available information, the larger business question may be what happens when AI provides an answer that appears credible, influences a decision, and still produces an unfavorable outcome for a business.

Is Google, or any AI-powered search or LLM platform, innocent of the results, the answers it comes up with? Is it responsible for the harm it may cause to companies by poorly interpreting the data and getting those answers "wrong" or "misleading" or "only part of the story"?

This is an interesting development in Germany: "Google is legally responsible for their created answer". I personally believe that companies should start to stand up to Google and other engines for misinforming their customers, disrupting their marketing messages by providing misinformation or partial information in the AI overviews.

Misinformation or partial information in AI citations and recommendations causes serious harm to business income.

Perhaps AI has way too much power to sway decisions and influence buyers. Why is it HEAVILY on companies to "prove themselves" to Google and the AI search engines? Could there be a more balanced solution for visibility on the web?

Why are AI search engines the ones deciding who is the "best choice" for a customer looking for answers? AI even doubles down on their answer over and over again, making firm, super-confident one-size-fits-all recommendations.

Even if it's wrong! Even if it's misleading! Even if facts and nuances are missing in the answers!

Is this fair? Stating opinions it finds online as fact? Really?

When AI becomes the advisor, who is responsible for the advice?

AI advice is often accepted without question by searchers, even though the sources behind those recommendations and the AI's interpretation of those sources may be inaccurate. When an AI-generated recommendation influences a business decision, responsibility for that advice remains an evolving legal and ethical question.  

"An April 2026 analysis published by The New York Times ... showed that AI Overviews with the current Gemini 3 model are inaccurate about 9 percent of the time and include inaccurate source links about 56 percent of the time."

Findings from studies like this "suggest that Google’s AI tool may be cranking out millions of wrong answers daily, with few users verifying the information." -- Ashley Belanger, Senior Policy Reporter, Ars Technica 

For now, it is what it is, AI Search Engines publish what they deem is appropriate and accurate. They police themselves, but governments and courts are beginning to enter the conversation and demand accountability. 

The legal scrutiny surrounding AI-generated recommendations is beginning to intensify.  Watch the space closely!

What should I do to make my business more AI-visible?

Do your best to have accurate, informative and helpful information out there:

• maintain accurate, up-to-date and relevant, localized website content.

• publish FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) that answer real customer questions.

• monitor how AI engines describe your business. Ask questions yourself!

• respond to reviews in a descriptive way, not just "Thanks!"

• build third-party credibility signals - reviews, media mentions, and industry awards.

• correct misinformation quickly when you find it.

That should set you on the right path to get better visibility, more accurate citations, and the powerful recommendations for your prospects to choose you.

AI is becoming part of the buying process. If it misunderstands your business, misrepresents your expertise, or recommends a competitor instead of you, what is the financial impact? 

This is going to be the question of the near future. Should businesses be totally responsible for the "AI readability" of the information out there about them? Should AI be making the recommendations on behalf of businesses for customers based on the information it finds? Should AI also be held to be more discerning, thorough, and be more accountable when it interprets this information and provides the recommendation, the commentary about reputation, or the advice?

Does AI state its opinion as fact? Will this have to change? 

Yes and yes. (Or it will at least have to be clearer about which is which). These are two actual questions I asked Google this morning, a prompt and a follow up:

"Prompt: "I am a roofing company that makes $5 million a year in Colorado Springs and am looking for a digital marketing company. Should I use (company name)?"

Google's Answer: "No, you should not use (company name) for a roofing company generating $5 million a year in Colorado Springs. While (company name) is a legitimate, major provider of digital marketing solutions and serves as an official Google Partner, its business model is fundamentally mismatched with a contractor of your size.

Why (company name) is a Poor Fit for Your Scale

(Google then lists four major reasons why not to use the company.)

(It then goes on...)

What You Should Look For Instead...

(Google then steers me to other companies.)

Prompt 2: Should I own my own website or use (company name)?

Google's Answer: You should absolutely own your own website. (the bolding is Google's). For a roofing company generating $5 million a year, choosing a proprietary, rented platform like (company name) over an asset you own is a massive financial and strategic risk.

(It then goes on...)

Why Owning Your Website is Critical...

What You Should Look For Instead..."

"Massive financial and strategic risk." That's quite the bold, alarmist, exaggerated, and unsubstantiated statement that potentially hurts (company name). 

None of this is completely factual. It is fed by a competitor's opinion. It's influenced by bad reviews from customers who, in part, are confused about what they signed up for. 

This is ultimately what is happening: AI is becoming a decision-maker and influencer in the customer buying journey.

Businesses that fail to actively manage the information AI uses to evaluate and recommend them risk losing customers, revenue, and competitive advantage. This is even when their products or services are superior! Managing AI visibility is becoming a strategic business responsibility, not just a marketing task. 

Companies are learning what they have to do to be seen and cited positively and accurately in answers to questions, but Google AI is still a bit of a monster. There is also the beginning of legal push-back, like in the German court decision against Google. 

We're about to see how this will go. In the meantime, businesses that structure, present and manage both their information and their reputation clearly online, are more likely to earn favorable citations, recommendations, and visibility in AI-generated answers.

To protect the bottom line. 

**Information about the ruling: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/06/nobody-needs-ai-to-search-the-internet-court-says-in-ruling-against-google/  

If you're interested in more detail on how to do and discussion on AI Optimizations for your business, read my companion articles on  The AI-Focused Way to Manage Your Brand's Reputation and Content for AI Citations

Susanna Kelland, Author

Digital Solutions Strategist & Account Manager | SMB Growth Partner | Google Certified | Digital Marketing Solutions for Local SMB Success (Residential & Commercial) | Digital Marketing for the Developing AI Era

LinkedIn Article, June 11, 2026