Google AI Overviews and AI Mode: what to do when Google gets your business wrong

AI Overviews and AI Mode: the difference

AI Overviews are the summaries Google shows above the normal search results. In German Google calls them Übersicht mit KI. AI Mode is a separate area of Google Search where you ask and follow up like in a chat. Both use Gemini models from Google. According to Google they may use different models and techniques, so answers and links can differ.

For businesses this is a big change from the old search. A customer used to see ten links and decided whom to believe. Today they get a ready-made answer, and many never click any further. If that answer contains a wrong closing day, they only notice when they are standing in front of a locked door.

Where Google gets the details about your business

Usually the AI relies on sources on the web. According to Google, AI Overviews and AI Mode rely on the normal ranking systems and the search index. For a question, Google runs several related searches on subtopics at once and summarises the results:

1One question“Is Gasthaus Muster open on Monday?”

2Many sub-searchesGoogle splits the question into subtopics and searches them at once

3Several sourcesWeb search, Business Profile, Maps and other Google data

4One answerWritten by the AI, with links to the sources. Outdated details slip in here

For local businesses Google explicitly names the Business Profile: a well-maintained profile helps you be visible in AI answers and the rest of Search.

The problem: the AI reads everything that matches your name. An old directory listing, a review from 2021 or a business with the same name in another city can slip into the answer. Which detail typically comes from where:

Documented cases show this is not theory: when people asked for the hotline of airlines and cruise lines, AI Overviews showed fraudulent phone numbers. At a pizzeria in Missouri, guests called to ask about deals that never existed. A bakery in Canada was confused with a business of the same name and reported as closed. More on the reasons is in the guide AI hallucinations about businesses.

Wrong details in AI Overviews: how to proceed

A report to Google alone rarely does the job. As long as the wrong source is online, the AI can find it again next time. So work in this order:

1. Check: ask the typical questions of your customers, signed out and including your town. Note what is wrong.
2. Find the source: click the links next to the answer. They show which pages the AI used. The wrong detail is not always there word for word, sometimes the AI combines details wrongly. If you find nothing, search for the wrong detail in quotation marks, such as the old phone number.
3. Fix it at the source: Business Profile, website, directory or portal. How that works on Google is covered in Edit your Google Business Profile.
4. Report to Google: only then give feedback on the answer, see below.
5. Check again: ask the same questions again after two to four weeks. Changes on your website can take longer.

Exception: if the statements damage your reputation, such as fraud allegations, report the error to Google immediately and specifically and keep a record of the report.

These searches uncover most errors:

AI Overviewbefore

Is Gasthaus Muster in Linz open on Monday?

Directory, listing from 2022Review site

AI Overviewafter

Is Gasthaus Muster in Linz open on Monday?

Business Profilegasthaus-muster.at

Your own website is your strongest corrective. If it clearly states as text when you are open and what you offer, the AI has a reliable source. If the detail is missing, it fills the gap with what others write.

Report an error to Google

This is how to give feedback on an AI Overview:

1. Click the thumbs down below the overview. Alternatively use the three-dot menu at the top right.
2. Choose Report a problem and the matching category.
3. Briefly describe in the text box what is wrong and what would be right, for example: “We have been closed on Tuesdays since March 2026, not Mondays. See gasthaus-muster.at/opening-hours.”
4. Click Submit.

In AI Mode click the thumbs down below the answer, choose a category straight away, add what would be right in the text box and click Submit. You do not get a reply, and Google does not say whether or when anything changes. That is why reporting is step four, not step one.

A note on the Business Profile: Google may call the number in your profile automatically or contact you by text or WhatsApp to confirm details such as opening hours or services. Google reviews changes from such calls and marks them as pending in your profile, which can take up to five business days. So look into your profile regularly. You can turn off automated calls in your verified profile under Business Profile settings and Advanced settings. Individual calls from Google employees are still possible afterwards. Google never asks for payment details or passwords.

Hiding AI Overviews: is it possible?

You cannot turn AI Overviews off completely, Google calls them a core feature of Search, similar to Knowledge Panels. But you can hide them per search: search as usual and choose the Web filter below the search bar, depending on the view under More. Google then shows only links without an AI summary. You only see AI Mode if you open it yourself or ask a follow-up question from an overview.

For businesses this means: your customers see AI Overviews whether they want to or not. That is why the details in them have to be right.

When it gets serious: legal action

German courts have already dealt with false statements in AI Overviews several times. A widely noted ruling came from the Munich Regional Court I on 28 May 2026 (case 26 O 869/26). According to it, AI Overviews are Google's own statement. Google therefore cannot argue that it merely reproduces third-party content. The court prohibited much of the false statements about a publisher. The publisher had first sent a formal warning and used Google's online form.

Similar decisions came from the Hamburg Regional Court in 2025 and the Aachen Regional Court in 2026, the latter about AI Mode. In both cases those affected had first notified Google of the specific error. But other courts, such as Frankfurt in 2025, ruled against the applicants. Most were urgent proceedings and none is final. Google has announced an appeal against the Munich ruling. German rulings do not apply in Austria or Switzerland, and we are not aware of a comparable ruling there so far.

For legal reports Google offers the form Report content for legal reasons. It applies to content in Google products in general, but Google asks you to report the content directly in the product first.

This is not legal advice. If it is about damage to your reputation or a noticeable loss of revenue, talk to a lawyer specialising in media or competition law. Before that, record the wrong answer with date, search query, exact wording, the sources shown and a screenshot.

What Google tells website owners

There is a lot of advice around AI search. Google itself says:

• No special optimisation needed: according to Google there are no additional requirements for AI Overviews and AI Mode. A page has to be indexed and eligible to appear with a snippet. What others call GEO or AEO is still SEO for Google.
• Structured data: not required, but if you use it, it has to match the visible text.
• What Google ignores: according to Google's guide (May 2026, updated July 2026), Google Search does not use an llms.txt file. There is no need to break your text into small chunks, and inauthentic mentions online help less than many think.
• Controlling specific passages: with the code instructions nosnippet, data-nosnippet and max-snippet you decide which parts of your text may appear in snippets and AI answers.

Available for all websites since 31 August 2026: in Search Console under Settings and Search generative AI you can exclude your content from AI Overviews, AI Mode and the AI features in Discover. According to Google this affects neither your ranking in the rest of Search nor AI training. Our assessment: for a local business this rarely makes sense. Google itself says content from other websites continues to appear in the AI features. So the AI can still write about your business, only your own website is then missing as the correct source.

Measuring: Search Console counts clicks from AI answers in the performance report under the Web search type. There is also a performance report for generative AI features, since June 2026 for some websites and since 31 August 2026 for all. It shows impressions by page, country, device and period. It does not show clicks separately.

And Google-Extended in robots.txt? According to Google it mainly controls Gemini training and the Gemini apps, not whether your page appears in Google Search. Google also plans to support a shared training signal of several AI providers in robots.txt from early 2027. How ChatGPT gets its details is a different story, see Why does my business not show up in ChatGPT?

Typical errors by industry

Which details go wrong depends heavily on the industry. Pick yours:

Which details are missing on your website, so the AI does not have to guess, is shown in the faktado.ai app under Improve your website, with a text block to paste.

Automatically check what Google and ChatGPT say about you

Asking the questions above by hand on a regular basis takes time, and the answers change from week to week. faktado.ai does it for you: the app regularly asks ChatGPT and Google about your business, compares every detail with your website and shows you which source is behind an error. It also checks directories and portals for old numbers and wrong opening hours, with the way to correct them. How to fix individual wrong AI answers is covered in Fix wrong AI answers. The free check shows you within about 15 minutes where you stand.

FAQ

Harald FischlManaging Director, maxonline

Harald is Managing Director of maxonline, an SEO and GEO agency from Lower Austria focused on hospitality. He works every day on how businesses are presented correctly in search engines and AI answers. More about Harald