diff --git a/x-pack/plugin/ml/build.gradle b/x-pack/plugin/ml/build.gradle
index 22cdb752d1e8d..74600a072ea0d 100644
--- a/x-pack/plugin/ml/build.gradle
+++ b/x-pack/plugin/ml/build.gradle
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 import org.elasticsearch.gradle.VersionProperties
 import org.elasticsearch.gradle.internal.dra.DraResolvePlugin
+import org.elasticsearch.gradle.internal.info.BuildParams
 
 apply plugin: 'elasticsearch.internal-es-plugin'
 apply plugin: 'elasticsearch.internal-cluster-test'
@@ -73,6 +74,7 @@ esplugin.bundleSpec.exclude 'platform/licenses/**'
 }
 
 dependencies {
+  testImplementation project(path: ':x-pack:plugin:inference')
   compileOnly project(':modules:lang-painless:spi')
   compileOnly project(path: xpackModule('core'))
   compileOnly project(path: xpackModule('autoscaling'))
@@ -113,6 +115,12 @@ artifacts {
   archives tasks.named("jar")
 }
 
+if (BuildParams.isSnapshotBuild() == false) {
+  tasks.named("test").configure {
+    systemProperty 'es.semantic_text_feature_flag_enabled', 'true'
+  }
+}
+
 tasks.register("extractNativeLicenses", Copy) {
   dependsOn configurations.nativeBundle
   into "${buildDir}/extractedNativeLicenses"