diff --git a/docs/settings/telemetry-settings.asciidoc b/docs/settings/telemetry-settings.asciidoc
index a5f5d1c44ffacf..89c018a86eca62 100644
--- a/docs/settings/telemetry-settings.asciidoc
+++ b/docs/settings/telemetry-settings.asciidoc
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ See our https://www.elastic.co/legal/privacy-statement[Privacy Statement] to lea
   | Set to `'server'` to report the cluster statistics from the {kib} server.
   If the server fails to connect to our endpoint at https://telemetry.elastic.co/, it assumes
   it is behind a firewall and falls back to `'browser'` to send it from users' browsers
-  when they are navigating through {kib}. Defaults to 'browser'.
+  when they are navigating through {kib}. Defaults to `'server'`.
 
 | `telemetry.optIn`
   | Set to `true` to automatically opt into reporting cluster statistics. You can also opt out through
diff --git a/src/plugins/telemetry/server/config.ts b/src/plugins/telemetry/server/config.ts
index 99dde0c3b3d966..ae9b70bb9f3672 100644
--- a/src/plugins/telemetry/server/config.ts
+++ b/src/plugins/telemetry/server/config.ts
@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ export const configSchema = schema.object({
     })
   ),
   sendUsageFrom: schema.oneOf([schema.literal('server'), schema.literal('browser')], {
-    defaultValue: 'browser',
+    defaultValue: 'server',
   }),
 });