Configure Media Library settings

How to enable AI captions and manage media behavior site-wide

The Media Settings page is a single-panel control center for global Media Library behavior. On SGEN 3.0, the key option is AI Media Captions — a toggle that determines whether SGEN attempts to generate descriptive alt text automatically each time you upload an image. This article covers when to turn it on, when to leave it off, and what it actually does.

What is this for?

AI Media Captions is SGEN's built-in accessibility shortcut. When enabled, every image you upload gets an AI-generated description proposed in the alt text field — you can accept it, edit it, or replace it entirely. The purpose is to reduce the friction of adding alt text to large batches of images. It is a suggestion engine, not a replacement for human review on accessibility-critical content.

Note on this version: On SGEN 3.0, the AI caption feature generates alt text from the filename when no AI provider is configured. A full AI-powered description (reading the actual image content) requires a provider integration — check with your platform team if you expect image-content captions rather than filename-derived suggestions.

Good use cases

Example 1: Enabling AI captions for a high-volume image library. Your marketing team uploads 20–30 product images each week. Without AI captions, each image sits in the library with no alt text until someone manually adds it — which rarely happens. Enabling AI captions means each upload gets at least a filename-derived suggestion. Reviewers can scan and approve quickly rather than writing from scratch.

Example 2: Disabling AI captions for GDPR / data-residency compliance. Your site serves users in the EU. Your DPO has flagged that routing image data to a third-party AI service may require a data processing agreement. Disable AI captions to ensure no image content leaves your hosting environment for captioning. Alt text can be added manually via the per-file Edit drawer.

Example 3: Reviewing the current setting before an accessibility audit. Your accessibility compliance team asks which automated tools are active. Navigate to Media Settings and confirm whether AI captions is toggled on or off. Screenshot the settings page as documentation for your audit trail.

What NOT to use this for

• Not a CDN configuration panel — configuring where files are served from (GCP Storage, a CDN) is not exposed in the 3.0 Settings page. Contact your platform team for infrastructure-level media configuration.
• Not a per-file alt text editor — this toggle applies globally to all future uploads. To add or change alt text on a specific already-uploaded image, use the Edit action on that file's card in the library grid.
• Not a bulk alt text generator — enabling the setting does not retroactively generate captions for files already in the library. It only applies to new uploads going forward.

How this connects to other features

• Upload workflow — AI captions affect what appears in the alt text field immediately after a new file is uploaded. Disable this setting if you want the alt text field to start blank.
• Pages and SG-Builder — alt text from the Media Library is the default text used when an image is placed on a page. A well-populated alt text library reduces manual editing per-page.
• Accessibility / SEO — alt text populated here surfaces on every public page where the image is embedded, contributing to screen reader readability and image search indexing.

Before you start

• You are signed in to SGEN as an admin.
• Decide your policy before toggling: accessibility teams generally recommend enabling AI captions and then auditing the suggestions rather than leaving alt text blank.

Where to go

1. Open the left navigation.
2. Select Media Library → Settings.

Steps

1. Review the current state

The Settings page shows one checkbox: Enable AI Media Captions. Its current state reflects the active site-wide setting.

2. Toggle the setting

Check or uncheck Enable AI Media Captions depending on your policy.

3. Save

Click Save Changes in the right rail. The page reloads with a success message confirming the setting was saved.

What success looks like

After saving, the page refreshes and returns to the Settings view. The checkbox reflects the state you saved. On your next image upload, the alt text field will be pre-populated (if enabled) or blank (if disabled).

What to do if it does not work

• Save does nothing / page does not reload — confirm you are logged in and your session has not expired. Try reloading the settings page and toggling again.
• AI captions are enabled but alt text is always blank after upload — on SGEN 3.0, AI caption generation depends on a provider being configured. If no provider is set up, the field may remain blank. Contact your platform team to confirm the AI captioner is connected.

Next step

Once settings are configured, upload new files via Upload files to the Media Library to see the AI caption behavior in action.