InDesign 21.3 (Beta) - Introducing Generate Text!

Gross. Terrible.

Sigh, more AI slosh functionality that 99% of InDesign users never asked for in the first place. It is becoming tiresome. 

Instead please improve the viewport / layout rendering performance and performance of InDesign as a whole. 

And add actual useful features for layout design. For example, why are CJK formatting and layout options still blocked in versions other than the Japanese and Chinese editions? Such outdated thinking.

For real I also think that

My overwhelmingly strong preference, if it matters, is to improve the tools we have, and introduce things that are truly useful to professional users. 

The list of these things is pretty long...

There are countless free resources outside of InDesign to write content, and I feel fairly certain that for most people using or considering using InDesign, an AI-generated writing feature won’t be the deciding factor in using it.

In my experience, authorship, especially at scale, typically does not take place within InDesign.

For the record, I’m not against AI - I happen to like a ton of what it offers; I’m against development prioritizing what I feel are the wrong things.

For example - I’d personally get a lot more use out of AI reviewing the content to help perform functions that might normally be done via GREP, highlighting potential issues like gaps or errors in style applications, or writing nondestructive scripting tools.
 

You should really fix the rendering issues that make the preview unusable.

Sigh…more bloat AI nobody asked for nor will use… terrible.

What am I missing? When I click on “Click here to get started!” Creative Cloud Desktop opens, but I see no option to install the InDesign 21.3 beta.

I have the changed the language to English, I set the Preference to Create AI Alt text when placing, I am logged in to my account (with many AI credits) but  no Alt text is generated, No blue icon is shown (not even the preference for it) and when I go to Object Export options, under Custom the button to generate AI Alt text is greyed out.
Why is this funcyion disabled? (No enterprise or whatever, just 'normal' version 21.3 US English)

Unfortunately, I am given completed files to lay out in InDesign, and have no authorization to change the content so this a feature I won’t be able to take advantage of.

     Personally, I would much prefer to see resources devoted towards taking care of issues that are already in play – bug fixes, variables that can’t break across columns, cells that can’t break across pages, page number labels that update in the Pages panel when you hide spreads, etc.

     These would be much more useful to me personally in my day-to-day life in InDesign. 

It’s a shame that Adobe is pouring all its resources into developing questionable AI. Most users have little to do with editorial content. They need a powerful tool to meet document layout requirements, perform automations, and much more. They aren’t interested in how to better describe a frog from Costa Rica.

It’s 2026, and InDesign still isn’t capable of processing JSON or XML higher than version 1.0.