Your feedback matters—and we’ve listened. We understand that not everyone requires AI assistance in their workflow. Many of you shared concerns about intrusive prompts and lack of control, and we’ve taken action. Now, Acrobat gives you complete control over AI features through Preferences. You decide what stays on and what turns off—no enforcement, no surprises — just flexibility. Important Note: Acrobat AI Assistant is continuously evolving, so different users may see slightly different options depending on their version of Acrobat. Rest assured, the available preferences will function as intended. To check the latest version available, please visit here: Release Notes. Where to Find These Settings Go to Menu > Preferences (Windows) or Acrobat > Preferences (Mac). In the left panel, select Generative AI. Here’s what you’ll see: Enable generative AI features in Acrobat (If you want to disable AI features entirely, simply uncheck this option) If you want to keep AI enabled but adjust other behaviours, you can select or deselect the remaining options according to your preference: Show the AI query bar on the document Quick access to ask questions about your PDF. Show AI video cards Replaces starred documents with smart previews (requires restart). You can also clear the AI Assistant chat history at any time for peace of mind. Note: We recommend relaunching Acrobat after making any changes for them to take effect. Business or Enterprise UsersYou may visit the link to check how to: Manage AI for Business or Enterprise Deployment Why Keep AI On? AI in Acrobat isn’t just a buzzword—it’s designed to save you time and simplify tasks: Summarise long documents in seconds. Generate quick insights without leaving your PDF. Navigate complex files effortlessly. These features are optional, but they can make your work smarter and faster. Check out Adobe’s official AI usage policy and limitations here:Acrobat AI Overview AI usage policy and limitations Community Resources: Try Acrobat GPT now Meet Acrobat Studio Work Smarter With Acrobat AI Assistant: Tools & Resources.Click the like button if this helps, or reply to share your experience.

Legend

Question

We Heard You: Full Control Over AI Features in Acrobat

Forum|Forum|6 months ago
November 11, 2025
10 replies
1542 views

Your feedback matters—and we’ve listened.

We understand that not everyone requires AI assistance in their workflow. Many of you shared concerns about intrusive prompts and lack of control, and we’ve taken action.

Now, Acrobat gives you complete control over AI features through Preferences. You decide what stays on and what turns off—no enforcement, no surprises — just flexibility.

Important Note:

Acrobat AI Assistant is continuously evolving, so different users may see slightly different options depending on their version of Acrobat. Rest assured, the available preferences will function as intended. To check the latest version available, please visit here: Release Notes.

Where to Find These Settings

Go to Menu > Preferences (Windows) or Acrobat > Preferences (Mac).
In the left panel, select Generative AI.
Here’s what you’ll see:

Enable generative AI features in Acrobat (If you want to disable AI features entirely, simply uncheck this option)

If you want to keep AI enabled but adjust other behaviours, you can select or deselect the remaining options according to your preference:
Show the AI query bar on the document
Quick access to ask questions about your PDF.
Show AI video cards
Replaces starred documents with smart previews (requires restart).

You can also clear the AI Assistant chat history at any time for peace of mind.

Note: We recommend relaunching Acrobat after making any changes for them to take effect.

Business or Enterprise Users
You may visit the link to check how to: Manage AI for Business or Enterprise Deployment

Why Keep AI On?

AI in Acrobat isn’t just a buzzword—it’s designed to save you time and simplify tasks:

Summarise long documents in seconds.

Generate quick insights without leaving your PDF.

Navigate complex files effortlessly.

These features are optional, but they can make your work smarter and faster.

Check out Adobe’s official AI usage policy and limitations here:

Community Resources:

Click the like button if this helps, or reply to share your experience.

Al Assistant

P

Phil5D06

Participant

That simply doesn’t work. AI Assistant reappears when Acrobat is restarted. Sort it out!

JeffreyToo

Participant

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be possible to turn the AI off in the manner you suggest through preferences. Even if I restart the program. Unclicking the Generative AI preference continues to put it back on every time I open up another pdf. It also continues to have an AI Assistant subscription ad come up every time I open up a pdf. You seemed to have ruined a perfectly good program, an excellent program previously, with all of the ai stuff with little to no way to truly turn off in interruptions to workflow of simply reading a pdf.

JS45946200

Participating Frequently

OMFG I THINK I FIGURED IT OUT!!!

My original document was created in InDesign, then exported to PDF. I went back to the original and I turned off generative AI for InDesign, and rebooted, but it still kept showing generative AI Alt-text descriptions for my images, which then propagated to the PDF I exported. Turned off Generative AI in Acrobat but it did nothing to remove the alt-text.

So I went back to InDesign and I poked through alllllll the menus trying to locate whatever was still forcing the AI descriptions on me and this is what I found:

There’s a “T” in a circle at the bottom of each image. If you Alt-click that circled T, the alt-text dialog pops up. And there it is: the AI-generated description that’s STILL THERE EVEN THOUGH I TURNED OFF GENERATIVE AI. You can delete it, or add your own text, whatever. Then click Done. That removes the AI text.

But here’s the thing, I can’t find a way to do a global erase of the AI generated alt-text. You have to do it for EVERY IMAGE IN YOUR DOCUMENT.

One at a time.

For, in my case, HUNDREDS OF IMAGES. (This is how I’m going to be spending the rest of my day.)

Then, save and export the cleaned document to PDF and the popups are finally gone.

Thanks, SO MUCH, Adobe, for adding this super useful time-suck “feature” to my workflow.

And for being SO HELPFUL in figuring out a solution in a timely manner.

It would have been a terrible user experience if I had to poke around in your product, which I’m paying for, and figure it out for myself when I was supposed to be getting MY OWN WORK DONE.

Yay. Good times.

In case your AI doesn’t catch my tone, that’s sarcasm. It was not, in fact, good times. 😒

JS45946200

Participating Frequently

Also, there are some good fixes in this thread, re: adjusting the popups in PDFs via the Accessibility settings.

Jerry3088215125bf

Participant

This does not work on CC Acrobat Pro v2026 001 21431

I have tried multiple times, restarted, and the boxes return checked. I have rebooted as well.

What happened. You’ve changed.

T

tommyj83378335

Participant

This doesn’t work in the Chrome extension. I just got off the phone with Adobe support and they say we can’t disable it. I create PDF’s all day long with my blueprint software. As a default action, it opens the PDF in a new browser tab so I can review it to be sure it’s accurate before saving it.

EVERY time I load a PDF there’s a three to five second lag while it loads this same banner every time.

As someone that’s a paying member, I’d like to turn this off. I know Adobe offers AI. If I want it, I know where to go find it. I don’t need the constant reminder that’s happening on EVERY file I load in the browser.

B

Briefcase_Joe2394

Participant

This is fantastic news and a great example of listening to user feedback!

I appreciate that the team didn't just give us a simple "on/off" switch, but granular control over things like the AI query bar on the document and the AI video cards. Sometimes the AI summary feature is genuinely helpful for huge PDFs, but I don't always want those UI elements cluttering my workspace.

Giving us the option to fully disable AI features under Preferences > Generative AI is exactly what users concerned about workflow and potential data processing were asking for.

Thank you for the quick response to the community's concerns! I'm updating now.

L

Lakewoodscoop.co.uk

Participant

Really appreciate this update. It’s great to see Adobe taking user feedback seriously and giving us the choice to control AI features. I like experimenting with the new tools, but it’s nice knowing I can turn things off if I want a more traditional workflow. Thanks for making this flexible, this feels like a thoughtful step in the right direction.

its34722139

Participant

Hi Adobe support,

Thanks for listening and your reply. While your solution will work for small deployment with a low number of compliant users, please provide a solution at scale where the users are unable to reverse these settings so the administrators can control this feature for large deployments where restricting access to AI is required.

I look forward to your prompt reply.

J