How to turn off AI Assistant in Adobe Acrobat on desktop, phone, and for a whole company

The Morse teamPublished November 8, 20268 min read

To turn off AI Assistant in Adobe Acrobat on a computer, close your open PDFs, go to Menu > Preferences > Generative AI on Windows or View > Preferences > Generative AI on a Mac, clear the Enable generative AI features checkbox, and select OK. As of November 2026, Adobe says these features "are enabled by default." In the Acrobat app on iPhone or Android, the same switch is under your profile icon, then Preferences, and a company turns AI Assistant off for everyone in the Adobe Admin Console.

We read Adobe's own help pages on November 8, 2026: the desktop and mobile pages on turning off generative AI, its pages on the new Acrobat experience, the AI troubleshooting page, the technical requirements, the usage policy, the chat history page, the Acrobat Studio admin page, the Enterprise Toolkit preference references for Mac and Windows, and Adobe's business post on how AI Assistant handles data. Every step below links to the Adobe page it came from. Adobe deserves credit for two disclosures. It names the company whose models answer your questions, and it says how many hours it keeps the document you asked about.

How do I turn off AI Assistant in Acrobat on Windows or Mac?

Four steps, from Adobe's turn off generative AI features page, last updated April 28, 2026:

1. Close all open documents in Acrobat.
2. On Windows, select Menu > Preferences > Generative AI. On a Mac, select View > Preferences > Generative AI.
3. Deselect the Enable generative AI features checkbox.
4. Select OK.

Adobe says on the same page that "individual users can turn off features if desired, and admins can revoke access for teams or organizations." It gives one set of desktop steps and doesn't list separate ones for Acrobat Reader, which its generative AI overview, updated August 31, 2026, names alongside Acrobat as a desktop app with these features.

Why is the AI Assistant button still there after I turn it off?

The checkbox turns the features off. Adobe's pages point to a second switch that removes the interface they live in. Its troubleshooting page, updated June 7, 2026, says that "Classic Acrobat doesn't support generative AI," and the technical requirements, updated September 1, 2026, list "New experience must be enabled" as a condition for AI Assistant.

So the classic view is the stronger off switch. Adobe's new Acrobat page gives the path: on Windows, Menu > Disable new Acrobat; on a Mac, View > Disable new Acrobat; then select Restart. You lose the redesigned interface along with the assistant, and you can switch back the same way.

The same requirements list two more conditions: you "must be online" and "signed in with a supported Adobe ID." The page also says support for generative AI on older versions "will be discontinued on June 1, 2026," and names 25.001.21288 as the first desktop version that supports every AI feature.

How do I turn off AI Assistant in the Acrobat app on iPhone or Android?

Three taps, the same on both phones. Adobe's mobile page, updated May 12, 2026, says to open Acrobat, select the profile icon in the top-right corner, select Preferences, and turn off the Enable generative AI features in Acrobat toggle. Adobe says this hides "AI Assistant, Generative summary, and Generate podcasts." Adobe's overview also lists the Adobe Scan app on Android as a place these features appear.

Can you turn off AI Assistant in Acrobat on the web?

None of Adobe's help pages we read on November 8, 2026 gives steps for Acrobat on the web, or for the Acrobat extension for Chrome and Edge, which the overview also lists. Adobe does say the assistant waits for you. Its business post on AI Assistant says a user "must click on the AI Assistant or generative summary buttons" before a document is summarized or questioned.

The web is where the assistant keeps the most. Adobe's chat history page, updated October 22, 2026, says chat history is stored "on your local device for desktop and mobile apps" but "in Adobe cloud storage for Acrobat on the web," and that "End users can't turn off chat history, but enterprise admins can do so via the Adobe Admin Console." If you use the web app, don't open the assistant on a file you'd rather keep off Adobe's cloud, and clear any history from the Options menu.

How do admins disable AI Assistant for a whole organization?

In the Adobe Admin Console, through product profiles. Adobe's Acrobat Studio admin page, updated June 7, 2026, lists the services an admin can switch on or off per profile: "PDF Services, AI Assistant in Acrobat, AI Assistant Chat History on Cloud," plus Adobe Express on Acrobat Studio. It says: "To revoke access to AI Assistant, disable AI Assistant, and Adobe Express in the product profile." Turning off AI Assistant Chat History on Cloud is the admin's version of the web history setting users can't change.

Adobe documents one machine-level key, for Macs. Its Mac preference reference lists bEnableGentech under FeatureLockDown, Generative AI, as a boolean that "Specifies whether to display the generative AI features in Acrobat Reader" for signed-out users, where 0 turns them off. Adobe marks it "Not lockable," and a companion key, bEnforceLoginInReader, requires signed-out Reader users to sign in before they can use the features.

On Windows, a post on Adobe's community forum gives admins a DWORD with the same name under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\DC\FeatureLockDown, set to 0, and says it was tested on Reader version 2026.001.21662 (Adobe Community). Adobe's own Windows preference reference, as we read it on November 8, 2026, has no generative AI entry at all, so test the value on your own Acrobat build before you push it to a fleet. For licensed users, the product profile is the switch Adobe documents.

Acrobat AI Assistant, app by app, as of November 8, 2026

What does Acrobat AI Assistant do with your documents?

It sends them to Adobe's cloud, and from there to a model Adobe licenses. Adobe's usage policy, updated April 15, 2026, says "The use of generative AI features in Acrobat involves cloud processing of documents." Adobe's business post names the model provider: "we currently use Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, which is contractually prohibited from manually reviewing or training its LLM on Adobe customer data."

On training, Adobe's promise covers its own models too. The same post says "Adobe does not use customer data to train or fine-tune LLMs," and the AI Assistant product page says your content is "never used to train Adobe's AI models." Whether Adobe trains on your Creative Cloud files more broadly is a separate question, which we answer in does Adobe train AI on your work.

On retention, Adobe gives a number: "Except for retained chat history and any content a user reports, the uploaded document, prompts, and generated responses from a session are all automatically deleted from the Adobe cloud after 12 hours." Two exceptions sit inside that sentence. Chat history stays until you clear it, and on the web it lives in Adobe's cloud. Reported content and feedback go to "a small number of trained employees" who "use both algorithmic and manual processes to review session data," so a thumbs-down on an answer about a contract can put that session in front of people.

Two of Adobe's links have moved. The Acrobat page titled "Generative AI features in Acrobat" that older guides cite as the AI data FAQ now redirects to Adobe's general content analysis FAQ, updated June 4, 2026, which covers Creative Cloud and Document Cloud together. And the AI Assistant security fact sheet that Adobe's admin page links to returned a "not found" page when we tried it on November 8, 2026. For how other apps treat uploads, see what happens to files you upload to ChatGPT.

How Morse lets you ask about a document without leaving a copy

AI Assistant works by putting your PDF on Adobe's cloud for 12 hours, keeping the chat about it on your device or Adobe's servers, and routing it through a model provider under Adobe's contract. Acrobat's setting for keeping a file out of that path is to turn the feature off. Morse is built so the document you ask about isn't stored on our servers. A file you attach is sent with the message and never stored by Morse, and your chat history is stored in your browser, encrypted, not on our servers (privacy policy).

• E2EE, for the clause in a contract or the page of a medical letter that no one should read. Paste the passage into an end-to-end encrypted chat. Your browser checks the secure enclave's proof that it's genuine, then encrypts the message so only that enclave can read it, and Morse's servers relay ciphertext they can't read. The enclaves are run by third-party providers, not by Morse, and the guarantee depends on the enclave hardware and attestation working as designed. E2EE runs open-weight models like GLM, Kimi, and DeepSeek, with tools that run on your device only.
• Private, for summarizing a long report with nothing secret in it. Private is the mode new chats start in, on open-weight models like DeepSeek, Kimi, and GLM, plus xAI's Grok. Morse has zero data retention agreements with its inference, search, and other providers, so they keep nothing.
• Anonymous, for GPT, Claude, or Gemini on a document you'd share anyway. Our proxy removes your account, email, and IP address and sends the message under Morse's own account. The provider sees the text without knowing it's you and may keep it for a limited time to check for abuse, under its own policy, so strip names and account numbers first.

Morse doesn't train AI on your content, sell your data, or show ads, so there's no training setting to hunt for. Unlocking your history takes two keys, one that never leaves your device and one our server gives you at sign-in. Clearing your browser deletes your chats for good, and Morse can't recover them, so keep the original PDF where it already lives.

Try a chat from the Morse home page without an account, or start free with no card. End-to-end encrypted chats come with Pro, at $19 a month.