diff --git a/test/docker-compose.yml b/test/docker-compose.yml
index d96d4d53..c42ed582 100644
--- a/test/docker-compose.yml
+++ b/test/docker-compose.yml
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 services:
   caikit:
-    # image: quay.io/opendatahub/caikit:latest
+    image: quay.io/opendatahub/caikit-tgis-serving:dev
     build: ..
     volumes:
       - ./caikit_config:/caikit/config
diff --git a/test/smoke-test.sh b/test/smoke-test.sh
index 0557ce1a..acb0d904 100644
--- a/test/smoke-test.sh
+++ b/test/smoke-test.sh
@@ -10,25 +10,29 @@ function command_required() {
 	fi
 }
 
-command_required python3
 command_required docker-compose
 command_required git-lfs
 
-if [[ ! -d .venv ]]; then
-	python -m venv .venv || (echo "Failed to create venv. Quitting." >&2 && exit 1)
-fi
-source .venv/bin/activate || (echo "Could not source venv. Quitting" >&2 && exit 1)
-
-pip install git+https://github.com/caikit/caikit-nlp
 if [[ ! -d flan-t5-small ]]; then
 	git clone https://huggingface.co/google/flan-t5-small
 fi
 
 mkdir -p models/
-../utils/convert.py --model-path flan-t5-small --model-save-path models/flan-t5-small-caikit/
-
+docker-compose build
+
+# use the container's environment to convert the model to caikit format
+docker run -it --user root \
+	-v $PWD/caikit_config:/caikit/config/ \
+	-v $PWD/flan-t5-small:/mnt/flan-t5-small \
+	-v $PWD/../utils:/utils \
+	-v $PWD/models/:/models quay.io/opendatahub/caikit-tgis-serving:dev \
+	/utils/convert.py --model-path /mnt/flan-t5-small --model-save-path /mnt/models/flan-t5-small-caikit0w/
 echo "Saved caikit model to ./models/"
 
+if [[ -n $CI ]]; then # Free up some space on CI
+	rm -rf flan-t5-small
+fi
+
 docker-compose up -d
 
 max_retries=10