@Lion13I often find them detracting too, yet as a one-time visual designer, I'm more focused in my approach. So rather than showcasing what I think the characters look like, I instead will focus on the overall mood, establishing the emotional feel of the story, rather than any single element of it.
It's a different perspective, and with any story, we all picture what we prefer the characters look like. So I'm much more judicious concerning how I use images and what I choose to illustrate.
However, we don't have many visual designer/authors here—for obvious reasons—as I as no longer draw or illustrate them myself, but instead use stock-art images which best fit the overall story.
I remember one particular novel, where the concluding chapter featured an image of a man's hand holding a whisky glass. Not many would use something as esoteric as that, yet it fit both the overall story and the final chapter.
And for something like that, the added distance from the subject and art typically works best all around. So not having to cover those myself is, in a strange way, somewhat freeing too. As a visual artist, I painted with paints or pen and ink, yet as an author, I paint with words, and it's hard filling both roles at the same time.
And too often, new authors think giving AI clues on what you want doesn't always produce the best images, as usually, they're close yet never quite right (color differences between background and foregrounds images, inconsistent focus and contract or just plain bad cutting and pasting jobs and their after effects—which again, also applies to AI, as they're even worse than a human author is at it.
They do follow prompts well, yet those attempts are, at best, rather ham-fisted rather than, believable.