diff --git a/modules/react/layout/spec/mergeStyles.spec.tsx b/modules/react/layout/spec/mergeStyles.spec.tsx
index 7cadbf4da7..d24392ebbe 100644
--- a/modules/react/layout/spec/mergeStyles.spec.tsx
+++ b/modules/react/layout/spec/mergeStyles.spec.tsx
@@ -41,8 +41,8 @@ describe('mergeStyles', () => {
 
     expect(screen.getByTestId('base')).toHaveStyle({padding: padding.styleAttribute});
   });
-
-  it('should allow the cs prop to override base styles', () => {
+  // Skipping this for now while we enable compat mode to run all the time
+  it.skip('should allow the cs prop to override base styles', () => {
     const overrideStyles = createStyles({
       padding: padding.createStyles,
     });
diff --git a/modules/styling/lib/cs.ts b/modules/styling/lib/cs.ts
index 350cdf3f46..ff80877b7b 100644
--- a/modules/styling/lib/cs.ts
+++ b/modules/styling/lib/cs.ts
@@ -694,8 +694,13 @@ export function handleCsProp<
   const {cs, style, className, ...restProps} = elemProps;
   const instance = getInstance();
 
-  // We are going to track if any runtime styles are detected
-  let shouldRuntimeMergeStyles = false;
+  // We're seeing style merging issues when using createStyles or createStencil. It only happens when
+  // every style override of the element uses these utilities and @emotion/react or @emotion/styled is not used on the same element.
+  // These utilities rely on module execution order and we're having a few reports where modules are possibly executing out of order.
+  // In order to allow everyone to use createStyles and createStencil without worrying about style merge issues, we're going
+  // to enable compat mode all the time. We'll look into possible out-of-order execution issues in the future and plan to re-enable
+  // full static mode (for better performance) once we know why this is happening and have a proper workaround.
+  let shouldRuntimeMergeStyles = true;
 
   // The order is intentional. The `className` should go first, then the `cs` prop. If we don't do
   // runtime merging, this order doesn't actually matter because the browser doesn't care the order
@@ -891,7 +896,7 @@ function combineClassNames(input: (string | undefined)[]): string {
     .filter((s, i, a) => onlyDefined(s) && onlyUnique(s, i, a))
     .join(' ');
 }
-  
+
 /**
  * Creates a reuseable Stencil for styling elements. It takes vars, base styles, modifiers, and
  * compound modifiers.
diff --git a/modules/styling/spec/cs.spec.tsx b/modules/styling/spec/cs.spec.tsx
index 5f5cab85fa..e7d4f419fb 100644
--- a/modules/styling/spec/cs.spec.tsx
+++ b/modules/styling/spec/cs.spec.tsx
@@ -862,7 +862,9 @@ describe('handleCsProp', () => {
     expect(screen.getByTestId('base')).toHaveStyle({padding: padding.styleAttribute});
   });
 
-  it('should allow the cs prop to override base styles', () => {
+  // While we have compat mode enabled, we'll skip these tests. The class generated comes from emotion and
+  //we have no way of validating the correct class.
+  it.skip('should allow the cs prop to override base styles', () => {
     const overrideStyles = createStyles({
       padding: padding.createStyles,
     });