Using Multiple AI Assistants with InDesign

The short answer: Yes, you can run multiple AI assistants at once, and they’ll all control the same InDesign instance.

How it works

When you start your first AI assistant, its Sidekick extension becomes the “primary” — it opens the connection to InDesign. Any additional assistants you start afterward connect through that primary.

From InDesign’s perspective, there’s just one connection. From yours, each assistant can send commands independently. All assistants share the same InDesign instance — whatever documents are open, the selection state, the current view. Sidekick queues all requests and executes them one at a time, so commands never collide or step on each other.

No configuration is needed. It just works.

Common scenarios

Claude Desktop for conversation, Claude Code for automation. Use Claude Desktop for exploratory work — describing what you want, iterating on a layout — while Claude Code handles repetitive scripting tasks or batch operations in the background.

Team members with their own assistants. Multiple people can connect to a shared InDesign instance, each working from their own machine. Useful for collaborative reviews or handoffs where you want to make changes in real time. (Note that all assistants share the same instance — if one assistant opens a different document, everyone sees that change.)

Testing different models side by side. If you’re curious how different AI assistants approach the same task, you can run them simultaneously and compare their solutions.

What you’ll see

The Sidekick panel in InDesign shows “Connected” regardless of how many assistants are connected. Each assistant’s requests appear in InDesign as they execute — you’ll see the application respond in real time.

Potential issues

Commands are sequential. Because requests queue up and execute one at a time, two rapid-fire commands from different assistants won’t run in parallel. They’ll run in order, which might occasionally create a brief wait.

Primary assistant quits. If the assistant that opened the primary connection quits, the others will briefly disconnect while one of them takes over as the new primary. Reconnection is automatic — you might notice a pause of a second or two.

Port conflicts. In rare cases, another application might be using port 6001. See When your AI Assistant isn’t responding for troubleshooting steps.

Questions?

Reach us at [email protected].