In addition to all the mentioned problems InDesign still produces weird Alt Text if there's a white logo on a dark background.

Just tested it with Prerelease 21.5.1 and this is still not fixed.

Hi R. Touret,

Thank you for taking the time to report this issue and for sharing these details with us. We sincerely appreciate your help.

To help us investigate this further, could you please confirm which language is selected under Paragraph Styles → [Basic Paragraph Style] → Edit → Advanced Character Formats → Language?

We appreciate your assistance and patience while we look into this.

Adobe InDesign Team

for those struggling to remove alt-text, i created a script that removes it for you, pasted below. It's worked for our team, hopefully it will be helpful to someone else.

that said, ADOBE PLEASE TURN THIS **** OFF BY DEFAULT AND GO BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD WITH IT. this is the worst and most poorly implemented "new feature" i can remember from you. and you're shoving it down peoples' throats.

#target indesign
#targetengine "session"
function p(o, n) {
var a, i;
if (!o || !o.reflect) return false;
a = o.reflect.properties;
for (i = 0; i < a.length; i++) {
if (a[i].name === n) return true;
}
return false;
}
function main() {
if (app.documents.length === 0) {
alert("No document is open.");
return;
}
var items = app.activeDocument.allPageItems;
var exportOptions;
var i;
for (i = 0; i < items.length; i++) {
if (!p(items[i], "objectExportOptions")) continue;
exportOptions = items[i].objectExportOptions;
if (
p(exportOptions, "altTextSourceType") &&
exportOptions.altTextSourceType === SourceType.SOURCE_CUSTOM
) {
if (p(exportOptions, "customAltText")) {
exportOptions.customAltText = "";
}
exportOptions.altTextSourceType = SourceType.SOURCE_XML_STRUCTURE;
}
}
}
main();

Adding my voice to this. This needs to be handled ASAP. I recently had a document that somehow popped up with these. My Generate Alt Text options are and have been off. Not only do I have to remove the incorrect alt text from every box, but I also have to ensure the setting in layer options is set to Custom, or it pastes the old, incorrect alt text back in when I replace the image in the box. It was calling construction sites a baseball diamond and using text about one person's photo on another. This is aggravating and just took up considerable time to clean what shouldn't have existed in the first place. Every single image on it needed inspected and corrected. This is exhausting and the opposite of user-friendly.

I was thrilled to discover the "delete all AI alt-text" option had been shipped because the ways I found to circumvent it began causing more problems, only to be very disappointed that it doesn't even work. See the screenshot (you'll notice this document is in french and the IA description is not only wrong, but also generated in english, which is of no use for our users), the dialog box saying "No IA generated alt text to delete" when there's a "generated by AI" text just behind.
I need to say that the coworker who created the file deactivated all AI generation features, but only after the hundreds of images were imported and text generated for them (ridden with mistakes) without our consent. My only guess for now is that the generated alt-text, being older than the remove all feature, are not recognized. Please fix this, it's been months now.

Still generating nonsense about 'nude figures' in a basic geometric pattern, please turn it off by default.

...and it still keeps generating random ********... please just turn it off!!

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?????