Configure AI Media Captions and Media Library settings

In short. The Media Settings page has one toggle: Enable AI Media Captions. Turn it on and every new image upload gets an auto-generated alt-text suggestion drawn from the filename (or image content, if your platform team has wired a provider). Turn it off and the alt-text field starts blank. The toggle is global, applies to new uploads only, and does not retroactively label existing files. Treat suggestions as drafts — review every one before publishing.

On this page: What it does · Scope table · Examples · Before you start · Steps · Troubleshooting · Vocabulary

How to enable AI Media Captions and manage Media Library behavior site-wide

Overview

AI Media Captions is SGEN's accessibility shortcut for images. When enabled, every uploaded image gets an auto-generated suggestion in the Description / Alt text field — you can accept it, edit it, or replace it. The point is to lower the cost of adding alt text to large batches of files; most teams skip alt text under deadline pressure and end up with a Media Library full of unlabeled images.

When disabled, the alt-text field starts blank on every upload. You add text manually, file by file, in the per-image edit drawer.

The toggle is global. It applies to every new upload, across every team member, going forward. It does not retroactively label files already in your library.

Note on SGEN 3.0. The AI captioner generates suggestions from the filename when no AI provider is configured. A content-aware caption (reading the actual image) needs a provider integration set up by your platform team. Filename-derived suggestions are still useful — they catch labels like yourstore-logo.png or classic-tshirt-front.jpg — but plan to review and rewrite each one on accessibility-critical pages.

How the render path works: when AI Media Captions is on and you upload an image, SGEN saves the file then asks the captioner for a description. The result is written into the alt-text field on the new media row. Nothing more happens automatically — the file is not re-processed on page load, the caption does not change once saved, and nothing is sent to a third-party service after that initial upload moment. Once written, the alt text travels with the image to every page where it is embedded.

Cost note. Each upload with AI Media Captions on triggers one caption call. For most teams the cost is small (captions are short text outputs), but for high-volume tenants (e-commerce catalogs, photo-heavy editorial sites), ask your platform team for the per-upload cost before enabling.

Timing note. The captioner runs synchronously on save — the upload dialog waits for the caption call before returning control. On a slow provider this can add several seconds per upload; for burst sessions of 50+ files, consider turning the setting off for the session and re-enabling after.

SGEN 2.x note. The 2.x Media Settings page included a GCP Storage panel for cloud-sync configuration. That panel is not on SGEN 3.0 — CDN and storage configuration moved to the platform team's hosting layer. Contact your platform contact if you need those controls.

Scope

The AI Captions setting is a single toggle in Media Settings. It applies to all new image uploads after the setting is saved. Existing images are not affected retroactively.

This page does not cover: per-file alt-text editing (use the edit drawer), format or compression defaults (set per-upload on the upload dialog), or visible image captions on public pages (use the SG-Builder image-caption component).

Examples

Example 1: Turning AI captions on for a busy marketing team.

A marketing team uploads 20–30 product images each week. Without AI captions, each file lands with a blank alt-text field and "we'll do it later" rarely happens. With the toggle on, every new upload gets a filename-derived suggestion:

Upload: classic-tshirt-front-natural-cotton.jpgAuto-suggested: "Classic T Shirt Front Natural Cotton"Edited to: "your business Classic T-Shirt in natural cotton, front view, size medium on model"

The team rewrites about half the suggestions; the other half need only light tweaks. Net effect: every image has reviewed alt text by end of week.

Example 2: Turning AI captions off for privacy-sensitive uploads.

A Data Protection Officer flags that routing image content to a third-party captioning service may need a data-processing agreement for uploads containing personal data — staff photos, customer testimonials, event images.

The team turns AI Media Captions off and handles alt text manually in each image's edit drawer. No image content leaves the SGEN hosting boundary; only the auto-suggestion step is skipped. This is the correct stance for any tenant where the legal review has not cleared third-party AI processing.

Example 3: Auditing the setting before an accessibility review.

An accessibility consultant asks which automated tools are active. The marketing lead opens Media Library → Settings, screenshots the panel showing the current toggle state, and attaches it to the audit packet along with a description of the human-review workflow.

The setting itself is one binary fact for the audit; the review workflow is the meaningful part.

The badges above are a snapshot model — your real counts will differ. The audit pattern is the same: total items, items with alt text, items still pending human review.

Green = reviewed and approved; amber = AI-suggested, not yet reviewed; red = blank, needs writing. The Tuesday review habit: filter by Missing alt text + AI-suggested not reviewed, walk the list, edit each entry.

SGEN never locks the alt-text field. The AI suggestion is a starting point — rewrite or clear it freely. A captioner might suggest "Sticker Pack Spread" — accurate but flat. Rewrite to your brand voice: "your business Sticker Pack: 12 weather-resistant vinyl stickers in deep brown." Treat every suggestion as a draft, not final copy.

Pre-launch audit recipe: open the Media Library, filter to Images, sort by Uploaded date descending, walk the most recent 30–50 entries. If alt text reads like a filename (lowercase words separated by dashes, or suffixes like _v2_final), it has not been reviewed — open the edit drawer, rewrite, save. A weekly half-hour pass keeps the library fully labeled without building a backlog.

What NOT to use this for

Always review before publishing. Even a well-tuned captioner gets details wrong — colors, counts, brand names. Never publish AI-generated alt text without a human read-through. For legal, medical, compliance, or PII-sensitive imagery, turn AI captions off and author alt text manually.

How this connects to other features

Media Settings is one knob in a larger image-accessibility-and-SEO chain.

• Upload workflow. The setting takes effect at upload time — pre-populated alt-text field if on, blank if off. WebP conversion and compression are separate per-upload toggles on the upload dialog; they don't interact with captioning.

• Per-image edit drawer. Alt text is always editable in the file's edit drawer, regardless of the global setting. The drawer also has a per-file Generate caption action — useful for backfilling existing files that predate the toggle being turned on.

• SG-Builder pages. When you embed an image, the Image component reads the alt text from the Media Library row by default. If you edit alt text in the library after a page is published, the page picks up the new value on the next render — no need to re-save the page.

• Public-site accessibility and SEO. Alt text from the library appears in the alt attribute on every public page. Screen readers announce it; image search engines index it. Descriptive, brand-aware alt text is both an accessibility requirement and an image-SEO signal.

• Site-settings audit log. Toggling this setting writes an entry to the audit log (visible to your platform team), including the admin who made the change and the timestamp. Useful for compliance review or incident investigation.

Before you start

• You are signed in as an SGEN admin with access to Media Library settings.
• You have a policy — at minimum: "every public image gets reviewed alt text before launch." Without one, the toggle becomes noise.
• You have confirmed your tenant's stance on third-party AI processing of uploaded image data (cleared, restricted, or blocked). If restricted or blocked, leave the setting off.
• Your platform team has confirmed whether a content-aware AI provider is configured. On SGEN 3.0 with no provider, suggestions are filename-derived; with a provider, they are content-derived. The setting label is the same; the suggestion quality differs.
• You have communicated the change to your team — a heads-up prevents confusion when suggestions start appearing in a field that was previously blank.
• You have a small test image ready (a low-resolution JPEG or PNG, under 100 KB) for the verification step in Step 5.

Where to go

1. Open the left navigation.
2. Select Media Library.
3. Click the Settings tab in the top-right corner of the Media Library list (or navigate directly to /sg-admin/media/settings).

Steps

1. Open the Media Settings page

From the Media Library list, click Settings (top-right). SGEN navigates to /sg-admin/media/settings. You see a single panel titled General with one checkbox.

The page is intentionally short. There is no second panel to scroll to, no tabs to switch between, no advanced section. Everything that exists on this page is visible above the fold.

2. Review the current state

Look at the Enable AI Media Captions checkbox.

• Checked — AI captions are currently on. New uploads receive auto-suggestions.
• Unchecked — AI captions are currently off. New uploads start with a blank alt-text field.

Under the checkbox is a helper line: "Automatically generates image captions using AI to improve accessibility and SEO." That is the only explanation the page provides; the rest of the policy decision is yours.

If you are auditing the current state without changing it, you are done — close the page, move on. The act of opening the Settings page does not change anything.

3. Toggle the setting

Click the checkbox to flip its state. The change is not saved yet — the form is in a dirty state.

If you want to abandon the change, navigate away (the browser will not warn you for this single-field form, so be deliberate). To save, continue to the next step.

4. Save the change

Click the Save Changes button on the right rail. The page reloads with a green success banner: "Settings saved successfully." The checkbox state reflects what you saved.

If a redirect parameter was on the URL when you arrived (rare), the form may follow it on success. Typically you stay on the Settings page.

5. Verify on a fresh upload

The fastest way to confirm the new behavior: upload a single test image and watch what happens to the alt-text field.

1. Navigate to Media Library.
2. Click + Upload files and select a small test image (e.g. test-image.png).
3. After the upload completes, click the new file in the list to open its edit drawer.
4. Read the Description / Alt text field.

- If the toggle is on, the field is pre-populated with a suggestion derived from the filename (or, with a content-aware provider configured, from the image content). - If the toggle is off, the field is blank.

1. Trash the test image when you are done.

This is the only reliable test — looking at the Settings page checkbox tells you the stored value; uploading a file tells you the effective behavior. They should match. If they don't, see the troubleshooting section.

6. (Optional) Confirm AI captions are reaching the public site

After uploading an image with AI captions on and reviewing/editing the suggestion, embed the image on a public page (or open an existing page that already uses it) and reload the page in a private/incognito window.

Right-click the image, choose Inspect, and look at the <img> tag — the alt attribute should match the alt text you saved.

<img src="https://yourdomain.com/uploads/yourstore-canvas-tote-bag-front.jpg" alt="Canvas Tote Bag, front view, beige cotton" width="600" height="600">

The text in the alt attribute is what screen readers announce and what image search engines index. That is the public-facing payoff for the work you did in Settings.

7. (Optional) Capture an audit screenshot

For accessibility audits or compliance reviews, screenshot the Settings page showing the saved state of the toggle and store the image somewhere that travels with your audit packet (a wiki page, a shared drive folder, the audit ticket itself).

Include the timestamp visible in the success banner. Future-you and any auditor will appreciate having a dated screenshot rather than a verbal claim about when the setting was changed.

What success looks like

After saving the toggle change:

• The Settings page reloads with the green "Settings saved successfully." banner and the checkbox reflects the new state.
• A test upload shows the expected behavior — auto-suggestion in the alt-text field if on, blank field if off.
• New uploads from every team member follow the new setting; existing media rows are untouched.
• The audit trail shows the change — your platform team can confirm the timestamp and the admin who made it.

A confirming sign: the next image upload's edit drawer opens with the alt-text field already filled. That is the captioner running on save and writing the result back to the row.

What to do if it does not work

• No success banner after clicking Save Changes. Your admin session may have expired — reload the page, sign back in, and save again.

• AI captions are on but new uploads still have a blank alt-text field. The captioner depends on a provider integration. On SGEN 3.0 with no provider configured, the captioner may return an empty string. Contact your platform team to confirm the integration is wired. If even filename-derived labels are missing, the integration is partially broken.

• Suggestions are wrong or generic. Filename-derived suggestions are only as good as your filenames. IMG_0001.jpg yields "Image 0001" — useless. Rename files to descriptive labels before upload (e.g. yourstore-canvas-tote-bag-front.jpg) and the suggestions improve significantly.

• I want to skip AI captions for one upload. Clear the suggestion from the alt-text field, type your own, and save. The global toggle does not lock the field. If you find yourself clearing it on every upload, turn the setting off site-wide.

• Setting looks saved but a refresh shows the old value. Hard-reload with Ctrl+Shift+R. If the old value persists after an upload test confirms the behavior hasn't changed, file a bug with screenshots of the toggle, the success banner, and the blank alt-text field.

• No Settings tab visible in Media Library. You may lack admin permissions for the Media area. Navigate directly to /sg-admin/media/settings to confirm whether the page renders or returns a permission error. Contact your tenant's admin manager if needed.

• Alt text saved in the library is not appearing on the public page. Three causes: (a) the page is cached from before your edit — re-publish or wait for the next render; (b) the image component on the page has a per-component alt-text override set in SG-Builder; (c) browser cache — hard-reload the public page with Ctrl+Shift+R or open it in a private/incognito window.

Vocabulary

Next step

• Upload files to the Media Library — see the per-upload toggles for WebP conversion, compression, and original-format preservation. The captioner runs after the upload completes; the format and compression toggles run during the upload itself.

• Edit media details — the per-file edit drawer where you review, edit, or replace AI-suggested alt text. Also where you set captions, file titles, and other per-image metadata.

• Organize the Media Library — folders, tagging, and filtering. The Missing alt text filter is your friend for accessibility audits.

• Custom CSS — for visual styling of images on public pages (border, radius, hover effects). Independent of alt text.

• For multi-team workflows: agree on an alt-text quality bar (one or two sentences, brand-aware, screen-reader-tested) and a review cadence (Tuesday team review, before-launch audit). The toggle is the easy part; the team workflow is what gets your library to fully labeled.

• For accessibility-first sites: pair this toggle with a public-page audit using a screen reader. The alt text reads well aloud — that is the only test that matters for the visitors who depend on it.