diff --git a/rest-api-spec/src/main/resources/rest-api-spec/api/esql.async_query.json b/rest-api-spec/src/main/resources/rest-api-spec/api/esql.async_query.json
index 5816049d12c75..56895059d499d 100644
--- a/rest-api-spec/src/main/resources/rest-api-spec/api/esql.async_query.json
+++ b/rest-api-spec/src/main/resources/rest-api-spec/api/esql.async_query.json
@@ -37,8 +37,8 @@
       },
       "allow_partial_results": {
         "type": "boolean",
-        "description": "If `true`, partial results will be returned if there are shard failures, but\nthe query can continue to execute on other clusters and shards.",
-        "default": false
+        "description": "If `true`, partial results will be returned if there are shard failures, but\nthe query can continue to execute on other clusters and shards.\nIf `false`, the entire query will fail if there are\nany failures.",
+        "default": true
       }
     },
     "body":{
diff --git a/rest-api-spec/src/main/resources/rest-api-spec/api/esql.query.json b/rest-api-spec/src/main/resources/rest-api-spec/api/esql.query.json
index 197e3de65a75e..28a488a20528f 100644
--- a/rest-api-spec/src/main/resources/rest-api-spec/api/esql.query.json
+++ b/rest-api-spec/src/main/resources/rest-api-spec/api/esql.query.json
@@ -37,8 +37,8 @@
       },
       "allow_partial_results": {
         "type": "boolean",
-        "description": "If `true`, partial results will be returned if there are shard failures, but\nthe query can continue to execute on other clusters and shards.",
-        "default": false
+        "description": "If `true`, partial results will be returned if there are shard failures, but\nthe query can continue to execute on other clusters and shards.\nIf `false`, the entire query will fail if there are\nany failures.",
+        "default": true
       }
     },
     "body":{