In some examples, adaptive speech intelligibility control for speech privacy may include determining, based on background noise at a near-end of a speaker, a noise estimate associated with speech emitted from the speaker, and comparing, by using a specified factor, the noise estimate to a speech level estimate for the speech emitted from the speaker. Adaptive speech intelligibility control for speech privacy may further include determining, based on the comparison, a gain value to be applied to the speaker to produce the speech at a specified level to maintain on-axis intelligibility with respect to the speaker, and applying the gain value to the speaker.