diff --git a/sdk/ai/azure-ai-generative/CHANGELOG.md b/sdk/ai/azure-ai-generative/CHANGELOG.md
index 84537ef7f5d0..dae0ed55022c 100644
--- a/sdk/ai/azure-ai-generative/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/sdk/ai/azure-ai-generative/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@
 
 ### Other Changes
 
+- Recursive Text Splitter is now enabled by default for local index builds which mimics behavior of cloud index builds
 - Bug fixes
 
 ## 1.0.0b5 (2024-02-02)
diff --git a/sdk/ai/azure-ai-generative/azure/ai/generative/index/_build_mlindex.py b/sdk/ai/azure-ai-generative/azure/ai/generative/index/_build_mlindex.py
index 1db912ebbf69..60fb5e0306dd 100644
--- a/sdk/ai/azure-ai-generative/azure/ai/generative/index/_build_mlindex.py
+++ b/sdk/ai/azure-ai-generative/azure/ai/generative/index/_build_mlindex.py
@@ -4,14 +4,14 @@
 
 from pathlib import Path
 from typing import Dict, Optional, Union
-from packaging import version
 
 import yaml  # type: ignore[import]
+from packaging import version
 
+from azure.ai.resources._utils._open_ai_utils import build_open_ai_protocol
 from azure.ai.resources.entities.mlindex import Index
-from azure.ai.resources.operations._index_data_source import ACSSource, LocalSource
 from azure.ai.resources.operations._acs_output_config import ACSOutputConfig
-from azure.ai.resources._utils._open_ai_utils import build_open_ai_protocol
+from azure.ai.resources.operations._index_data_source import ACSSource, LocalSource
 
 
 def build_index(
@@ -60,6 +60,7 @@ def build_index(
     splitter_args= {
         'chunk_size': chunk_size,
         'chunk_overlap': chunk_overlap,
+        'use_rcts': True
     }
     if max_sample_files is not None:
         splitter_args["max_sample_files"] = max_sample_files