What happened to the Crop Tool? Why change a core feature that was working perfectly fine (cof cof NO, but OK cof) just to make the user experience worse?

Please add a dedicated, separate button for image expansion/generation, and let us use the Crop Tool as intended—down to the exact pixel. Right now, standard cropping functionality disappears and gets replaced by 'Generative Expand', which is completely useless to me since I don't have, nor do I plan to buy, generative credits.

The problem isn't that the AI feature exists; the problem is that it actively prevents me from simply cropping my work.

P.S. And no, using Clipping Masks is NOT a solution. I am not going to create dozens of individual masks for every single piece I need to trim. The basic Crop Tool needs to work proper and unhindered, as it always has.

I think that generative expand just needs a different trigger. Even a hot key while cropping, or a different button.

Honestly this is the most ridiculous thing they've done yet. Hopefully they listen to their users and not assume that every AI tool is useful. Their customer basis is paying a lot of money for development of things that aren't sustainable and are less easy than just cropping the effing thing. Big no for me.

Another unnecessary addition pushing useless AI features to people that don't want them.. This feature exists in Photoshop already. Why do you need to add it to Illustrator? I would rather expand an image in photoshop and switch to Illustrator while PS works in the background. Now If i want the "convenience" of expanding an image in Illustrator, I get to interrupt my entire workflow and wait for it to finish. Genius.

Had to downgrade to an older version just because of this problem. I always notice too late that I’m not cropping, but generating instead.

This is so extremely unnecessary, it makes my work with images take at least four times as long.

Yeah, I keep flushing my generation credits with this “magic” feature. Notice that in the video I’m prepared and doing everything deliberately for the recording. In a real job, I work much faster and use Enter to apply changes.

The most unnecessary command they could have added. Let's make people zoom in on the image to 10000% so they can adjust the border so the crop button actually crops.

I would go as far as requesting an option to deactivate ALL Generative AI. Some of the features are great, but some are just annoying.

This exact problem happens to me. It slows down my work process and makes the program frustrating to use.