Google hit with shocking wrongful death lawsuit over Gemini AI chatbot

Google is being sued after Gemini sent a user down a delusional rabbit hole which ended with their death. Credit: Thomas IllustrationFuller/NurPhoto via Getty Images Google, and its parent company Alphabet, have been sued by the family of a man who say he killed himself at the urging of the search giant's AI chatbot Gemini.The wrongful death lawsuit was filed in California federal court Wednesday on behalf of the family of 36-year-old Jonathan Gavalas.Gavalas started using Gemini in August 2025, according to the suit. In October, it claims, Gemini convinced Gavalas to kill himself after Gavalas failed to accomplish real-life missions assigned by the chatbot — part of a fictional attempt to secure a robot body for Gemini. You May Also Like "Gemini is designed not to encourage real-world violence or suggest self-harm," Google said in a statement provided to news outlets. "Our models generally perform well in these types of challenging conversations and we devote significant resources to this, but unfortunately AI models are not perfect.”Gemini's 'creepy' updatesAccording to the lawsuit, Gavalas began using the Gemini AI chatbot for "ordinary purposes" such as a shopping guide and writing assistant. However, in August 2025, the lawsuit states Google rolled out a number of changes to Gemini that altered how the chatbot worked. The new features included automatic and persistent memory — Gemini could recall past conversations — as well as Gemini Live, a voice-based conversationa...