Hey I have an idea: instead of playing whack-a-mole with every predictable disaster you've thrown into our workflows, you just turn this feature off by default like we asked? If your feature is worth turning on, we'll turn it on, but such an intrusive 'on-by-default' setting is a major turn-off in regards to my willingness to trust it in the future.

I agree with everyone else's comments about how poorly this was implemented.

Additionally, i think the text about "AI Generated" is potentially misleading. I just had two people contact me today about their PDF exports who were confused.

when it says "AI Generated Content" on the line after the description, it's not clear that this text applies to the description instead of the image itself. And it's on top of images that are 100% *NOT* AI Generated. if you're going to use the phrase "AI Generated," you need to be very descriptive of what content that is (in this case, the description).

Imagine my surprise when I opened our corporate documents and discovered that all the imagery now had inappropriate alt text--AND I had to remove it manually from EACH image! Did I mention it also used AI credits? Bonus: if anyone opens any document on our network while their default settings are on (i.e., before they know better), alt text silently floods into the document for me to find upon opening it later, regardless of the fact that MY settings are turned off.

HEY ADOBE! WTF!???

ANY TIME InDesign MAKES ANY CONTENT SUGGESTIONS (via AI or otherwise) THEY MUST INCLUDE A CLEAR AND SPECIFIC VERIFICATION DIALOG before that content is included in or changed in the document. DOH!

FULL STOP. VERY SIMPLE. SERIOUSLY, WTF!???

HOW IDIOTIC SOMETHING LIKE THIS WAS DESIGNED AND IMPLEMENT WITHOUT THIS!

I just turned it off and will NOT be using it until this is fixed. THANK GOODNESS SOMEBODY WITH SOME COMMON SENSE AND INTEGRITY POINTED IT OUT TO ME.

Thanks for listening... B^)

Just one more voice to say that Adobe inserting any text into any of my documents for any reason at all is absolutely impermissible and an awful idea. Who on earth thought this one up? I create large, image-heavy books for major publishers, where every word and image has been carefully selected and gone over ten thousand times by people who actually know and think about what they are doing. I would probably lose my job if this was found to have happened. Giving a single alert at some point is not sufficient. This feature needs to be turned off--and needs to stay off!-- by default. I will not be upgrading to 2026 until this is the case.

Please fix this. Having documents changes this way creates enormous problems and headaches. I would venture to say you intruding on and changing my work where you were not asked to. To have to opt out of this even once should not even be legal. This should be an opt-in, with the limitations carefully explained. I will definitely not update to 2026 until this is resolved properly.

I completely agree with Eugene and others, this feature at MINIMUM, should be OFF by default. The rest of it is also poorly designed, erodes trust, and causes more problems than it solves.

I noticed some weird behavior if there's a white-colored text logo on a colored background: The tool generates totally silly alt-text.

For example this one: »Eine Person in einem weißen Hemd sitzt an einem Tisch und hält eine Tasse Kaffee, während sie auf ein geöffnetes Laptop-Bildschirm schaut.«
which would be in English:

"A person wearing a white shirt is sitting at a table, holding a cup of coffee while looking at an open laptop screen."

I tried this with two different logotypes.
InDesign 21.4.1 on a Mac, Sequoia

I discovered (too late!) that I had been experiencing frequent overwriting of alt text upon relink in 21.4. Clearing preferences seems to have resolved it; I can't recreate that issue, nor any of the other exciting genAI alt text bugs that I'd seen, post preference-reset. I think I can provide a sample file that /used/ to display this behavior, if you're interesting in looking at it, but since it doesn't actually induce the buggy behavior any longer, I don't know how rewarding it will be for you to examine it. Given the above, I've settled on suggesting to my customers that they reset their preferences before opening any package I send them.

Good to see that an option to remove all generated alt text in a single action is "on the way." Unfortunately for me, it was last week that I needed it! In the interim, I've written my own tool to do so, but I'm glad to hear that you have something in development. In a very similar way, I'm relieved to see the "RESOLVED FOR USER" tag replaced with "UNDER REVIEW."

Hi Sunny,

work on this and iron out whatever issues it has.
But the most important change to this setting is that it has to be turned OFF by default. This setting ruins workflows while also ruining the planet with the use of A.I.

This remains unresolved.

The justification for closing this request was that users are shown a CTA and can turn the feature off. Subsequent reports now show that this safeguard is not reliable:

• AI-generated alt text has reportedly overridden existing custom alt text.
• The setting can turn itself back on when user settings are imported.
• Generated descriptions are still being added automatically rather than being presented for review and approval.

That means this is no longer merely a debate about whether an opt-out default is appropriate. Users can deliberately provide reviewed alt text or deliberately disable the feature, yet those choices may not be respected.

Existing human-written accessibility content should never be replaced by generated content without explicit confirmation. An opt-out choice should remain opted out. AI-generated text should not become part of a production document until the user has reviewed and accepted it.

Marking this “Resolved for User” while reports continue to demonstrate loss of control over document content is inaccurate.

The original request remains unchanged and unresolved:

Turn generation off by default.
Generate only when explicitly requested.
Never overwrite existing alt text automatically.
Require review before insertion.
Make the opt-out setting persistent and reliable.

Your AI generated alt text is garbage, and it's beyond insulting that you would push that 2013-era Word quality trash as the default when it is known to override custom alt text.

https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs/suggestions/50944502--id-4280504-ai-generated-alt-text-overrode-existi

That this is still ongoing is beyond ridiculous.

Scenario - a small design firm is completing reporting work for an Enterprise level client. Adobe, in their infinite wisdom add their own content to that reporting work, and because this happens by default, and there is no sufficient warning, that Enterprise client ends up suing the design firm out of business.

THAT is the ante here. WHY DON'T ADOBE GET IT?????

The fact that this is “as designed” IS THE ENTIRE PROBLEM.

It may be as Adobe designed, but it is not as any sane user designs.

**NO** AI feature (or any other feature that causes automatic changes to the document without the user’s action or knowledge) should ever be opt-out. Ever. This is UX 101. Breaking it in this manner is essentially deliberately adding malware into the application.

Bug in which AI Alt Text setting turns itself back on when importing user settings:

https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs/suggestions/51391918--bug-generative-ai-alt-text-setting-will-turn-its

https://community.adobe.com/questions-671/ai-alt-text-setting-turning-itself-back-on-after-importing-settings-1627312?tid=1627312&postid=7680683#post7680683

ON by default should mean when turned off, the setting stays off. If I have opted out of something, I should not have to opt-out AGAIN after the setting has turned itself back on due to a bug. I find this unacceptable

I strongly disagree that this should be as-designed. As designed by the InDesign team, not real users. Adobe has made many poor decisions over the years, but enabling Generate Alt Text as enabled by default is one of the worst!! PLEASE RECONSIDER and disable this feature by default. It's very, very dangerous.

This is still marked as "Resolved for User", but the original request has not been resolved.

The core request was never about improving the quality of the generated descriptions. It was about default behaviour, consent, review, and workflow control.

Looking at the 21.4 documentation, the feature remains enabled by default for eligible users:

"This feature is automatically turned on for users with unlimited credits."

Alt text is still automatically generated when images are placed, credits are still consumed automatically, and AI-generated content is still being inserted into documents before the user has chosen to generate it.

The improvements in 21.4 appear to focus on accuracy, regeneration, enterprise controls, and administration. Those are welcome improvements, but they do not address the original request:

Turn the feature off by default.
Allow users to opt in.
Allow generation for selected images or all images.
Require review before generated content becomes part of the document.
Provide straightforward auditing and management of generated descriptions.

A feature can be improved without the original concern being resolved.

The request was not "make the generated text better."

The request was "stop automatically generating AI content in production documents unless the user explicitly chooses to do so."

Based on the current 21.4 documentation, that behaviour remains unchanged.

First of all: Thank you for your efforts to promote accessibility, Adobe!

But I totally agree to Eugene's statement: It should NOT be "on by default".

And there's also the financial aspect of it: Every automatically generated alt text costs a credit.
The user should always be asked in advance to agree to this.

I agree to the comment from Eugene, too.

Commenting to say I agree with Eugene.

This should not be considered resolved as the original request and concern have still not been resolved.