diff --git a/internal/civisibility/integrations/gotesting/instrumentation.go b/internal/civisibility/integrations/gotesting/instrumentation.go
index 50531796c1..5f1d2bf849 100644
--- a/internal/civisibility/integrations/gotesting/instrumentation.go
+++ b/internal/civisibility/integrations/gotesting/instrumentation.go
@@ -61,11 +61,12 @@ func isCiVisibilityEnabled() bool {
 	// let's check if the value has already been loaded from the env-vars
 	enabledValue := atomic.LoadInt32(&ciVisibilityEnabledValue)
 	if enabledValue == -1 {
-		// Get the DD_CIVISIBILITY_ENABLED env var, if not present we default to true. This is because if we are here, it means
+		// Get the DD_CIVISIBILITY_ENABLED env var, if not present we default to false (for now). This is because if we are here, it means
 		// that the process was instrumented for ci visibility or by using orchestrion.
 		// So effectively this env-var will act as a kill switch for cases where the code is instrumented, but
 		// we don't want the civisibility instrumentation to be enabled.
-		if internal.BoolEnv(constants.CIVisibilityEnabledEnvironmentVariable, true) {
+		// *** For preview releases we will default to false, meaning that the use of ci visibility must be opt-in ***
+		if internal.BoolEnv(constants.CIVisibilityEnabledEnvironmentVariable, false) {
 			atomic.StoreInt32(&ciVisibilityEnabledValue, 1)
 			return true
 		} else {