diff --git a/Doc/Makefile b/Doc/Makefile
index eca574ec290..1cbfc722b01 100644
--- a/Doc/Makefile
+++ b/Doc/Makefile
@@ -150,10 +150,14 @@ gettext: build
 htmlview: html
 	$(PYTHON) -c "import os, webbrowser; webbrowser.open('file://' + os.path.realpath('build/html/index.html'))"
 
+.PHONY: ensure-sphinx-autobuild
+ensure-sphinx-autobuild: venv
+	$(VENVDIR)/bin/sphinx-autobuild --version > /dev/null || $(VENVDIR)/bin/python3 -m pip install sphinx-autobuild
+
 .PHONY: htmllive
 htmllive: SPHINXBUILD = $(VENVDIR)/bin/sphinx-autobuild
 htmllive: SPHINXOPTS = --re-ignore="/venv/" --open-browser --delay 0
-htmllive: html
+htmllive: ensure-sphinx-autobuild html
 
 .PHONY: clean
 clean: clean-venv
diff --git a/Doc/requirements.txt b/Doc/requirements.txt
index 15675ab45fe..b47a9d8a863 100644
--- a/Doc/requirements.txt
+++ b/Doc/requirements.txt
@@ -10,7 +10,6 @@ sphinx~=7.3.0
 
 blurb
 
-sphinx-autobuild
 sphinxext-opengraph==0.7.5
 sphinx-notfound-page==1.0.0